


Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken:  The Chronicles of Elia Martell

by eena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, House Martell, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon, Robert's Rebellion, Sexual Content, mostly you die, you win or you die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eena/pseuds/eena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they speak of her, it is only with remorse and pity. If they remember her, it is only because the horror of her end makes it impossible to dismiss her entirely. If they write of her, they write only of her frailty, of her marriage, and of her death- as if there was nothing else at all noteworthy of the pale, sick wife of Rhaegar Targaryen who met a most terrible end . . .</p><p>It would stupefy them entirely to know that she was an actual person, all of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [asoiafbigbang challenge comm](http://asoiafbigbang.livejournal.com/) on LJ.

**Title:** Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken: The Chronicles of Elia Martell  
 **Author:**  
 **Artist:**  
 **Disclaimer:** Do not own.  
 **Genre:** (slash, het, gen, etc.) Het  
 **Pairings/Characters:** Elia Martell, Rhaegar Targaryen, Oberyn Martell, Doran Martell, Ashara Dayne, Arthur Dayne, Jaime Lannister, Aerys Targaryen, Rhaella Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen, Prince Lewyn Martell, the Lady of Dorne, various Kingsguard.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Word count:** (optional) 30, 150  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** (delete if not applicable) Some ADwD spoilers, if you squint.   
**Summary:**   
If they speak of her, it is only with remorse and pity. If they remember her, it is only because the horror of her end makes it impossible to dismiss her entirely. If they write of her, they write only of her frailty, of her marriage, and of her death- as if there was nothing else at all noteworthy of the pale, sick wife of Rhaegar Targaryen who met a most terrible end . . .

It would stupefy them entirely to know that she was an actual person, all of her own.

**Dedication:** To kellou24, for stepping up and being my beta-thank you so much!!!!! Also, to skyclearblue, for the beautiful art to accompany the fic.

 

~277 A.L.~

Bleeding days made the talk of marriage all that more intolerable. Listening to her lady mother on such days took more strength than Elia had to spare. 

 

She shifted slightly in her seat, subtly trying to straighten her spine before the Lady of Dorne could see her slumping. A demeanour of anything other than rapt attention was often enough to set her mother to scolding. And though Elia had little love for marriage talks, they were infinitely better than lectures. No, it was better to put on a show though the pounding at her temples made it nearly impossible to concentrate on what was being said. 

 

Elia was grateful that her thoughts on the matter of her own marriage were never required until her mother put a living candidate before her. She was expected to feign interest, not forced to debate or speculate, and such a light duty was a boon on days when her entire body cried for rest and the oblivion of sleep.

 

“ . . . Rickard Stark has boys to spare,” Elia strained to focus on the sound of her brother’s voice. Doran was as soft-spoken and even-tempered as ever, even though Oberyn followed most of his comments with loud dismissive snorts.

 

Elia wanted to go to them both and a place a hand on each of their shoulders; one to will Doran to speak louder, more vehemently, even as the other pleaded with Oberyn for restraint. Her younger brother was all her delight, but Elia knew their mother’s patience with his antics lessened each year Elia remained unmarried. The Lady of Dorne still held Oberyn at fault for Elia’s rejection of all the suitors that had been paraded through the streets of Sunspear.

 

But the fault lay not with Oberyn, but with their mother. If Elia had no choice in the matter, she could hardly reject the proposals. It was the choice that was at fault, and it set Elia upon thinking and thinking and thinking. Oberyn’s remarks combined with her own doubts made the choice nearly impossible. Life with any of the men her mother brought to her was beyond Elia’s imagination. Whether that difficulty was owed to her Dornish temperament or she simply lacked the strength to persist with the task, this she could not say for certain. Elia did know that as she approached her twentieth name-day, her mother approached the onset of panic.

 

“ . . . betrothed to Hoster Tully’s girl, but he does have two other boys,” Doran continued to say.

 

_Babes,_ she thought to herself, thinking of the other two boys in question. _The middle one is not so young, though he is six years younger than I am myself. But the other . . . he is of an age with the lion cub, and as I was too old for him, I am too old for this Stark babe._

 

“ . . . not inherit; perhaps the father would not object to a southern relocation, if lands were involved.”

 

Elia slid her eyes towards their mother, unsurprised by the scowl she saw there. “Over-proud descendants of weak-kneed lesser kings,” the Lady shook her head in refusal. “Rickard Stark would want her to go north, no matter what we offer.”

 

_Rickard Stark is not Tywin Lannister._ Elia blinked slowly and kept that particular name to herself. The Lady of Dorne had not yet recovered from the sting she felt at the Rock and had little charity to spare for lions. She had even forgotten her love of the late Lady Lannister in the face of the insult.

 

_He was nine and I was eighteen-it was not to be._ Elia could still picture the little lion cub, Jaime Lannister, in her mind’s eye. A golden child for certain, every bit as handsome as his sister was lovely, but still a child. A nine-year divide between man and wife was not unheard of, but for the wife to carry the years over her husband was little seen. But that was not the real bite the Lady had felt.

 

_She wanted Joanna’s little girl for her little boy, though truly Oberyn has not been a little boy for quite some time. Casterly Rock brought to Sunspear, that was what she wanted. A little Joanna for a daughter, a strong lioness of the west to replace the frail daughter she would send away._

 

“Elia would not survive one northern winter,” Oberyn objected hotly, and she could have struck him had she the skill or the strength. His words were the words of a protective, loving brother, she knew, but they had the unfortunate effect of drawing all eyes to her.

 

She had kept her back as straight as possible, and met her mother’s gaze calmly. However, there was nothing she could do to hide the pale pallor of her skin, or the dark circles forming under her dark eyes. Elia knew she was slightly skinnier than she should be, and that added a worn, almost pinched look to her features.

 

The Lady of Dorne saw everything in one glance, and Elia silently cursed her brothers both (Doran for the talk of a northern match and Oberyn for the stubborn refusal of it). In an instant, she felt more exhausted than what was normal. She prayed to the Seven, to whichever would listen, to end this talk of marriage before she collapsed entirely.

 

Elia hated bleeding days.

 

“A princess of Dorne will not marry a landless wolf,” the Lady tore her eyes away from her daughter’s face and glared at her sons. “Dorne will not go begging for scraps at any lord’s table.”

 

_Then why are we here?_ The uselessness of these talks irritated Elia beyond all measure. No one was good enough, noble enough, prestigious enough for her lady mother. The Lady had been finicky before, but the altercation with Tywin Lannister had made her all the more obstinate. Sons of the great house of Dorne were not enough, sons of the greatest northern Lord were not enough. Perhaps Elia’s fate was to remain unmarried.

 

_I could become a septa,_ she mused idly. _I could remain in Dorne, perhaps teach Doran’s girls, should he have any. And Oberyn’s as well, should he have any legitimate ones._

 

Nymeria herself would have to rise from the dead and command it before the Lady of Dorne would agree.

 

“Have neither of you anything relevant to discuss?” Her mother’s mood was darkening by the second. The mention of Elia’s frailty usually had that effect. “You are her brothers-not to mention the princes of Dorne. Have you not a speck of wit to spare for your sister’s happiness? For the honour of your house?”

 

Both princes stared blankly at their mother; there was never any use in arguing when the Lady was in such a temper. Doran’s serenity could be authentic; criticized as he was for being too soft, no one could deny the elder prince’s unflappable demeanour. Elia suspected Doran could keep a pleasant and unassuming countenance in the midst of a riot. She knew that many people saw this as another fault, some so bold as to say it was indicative of an overly simple mind. Those people were fools.

 

Oberyn also held his expression carefully neutral, but the tightening of his fingers around his armrest would not escape notice. Her little brother had all of the Dornish temperament, but their lady mother was right; Oberyn had much to learn before he could possess all of the Dornish wits.

 

_He will learn, though; he learns more everyday._ People would soon learn to fear him, and they will learn to dismiss Doran. Elia wondered if any outsider could ever understand which of her brothers was actually the most dangerous.

 

“There is always the Rose,” Oberyn said, a shade too calm in light of his white knuckles. Elia closed her eyes at his words and didn’t bother to stifle the sigh that tumbled from her lips.

 

“A squalling, steward’s boy?” The Lady’s voice had dropped to an almost indecipherable level. Elia didn’t dare a glance at her mother, but she did level her brother with an angry look. That was too far.

 

“Willas is not a poor choice for our dear Elia,” Oberyn continued, ignoring both his mother and his sister’s obvious irritation. He turned to share a grin with his brother. Doran blinked and said nothing, but that could be an endorsement for all Elia knew.

 

“You would wed your sister to House Tyrell?” the Lady asked, a bit heatedly as if that would make her words all that more weighty. “A princess of Dorne to a Steward’s get?”

 

Oberyn only shrugged. “The boy would become heir to Highgarden, with all its wealth and esteem. And yes mother, esteem they have as the lords of the Reach.”

 

This could not continue. “Enough brother,” Elia did her best to sound firm instead of breathless; she half-achieved it. “Even if the boy were not a mere babe, younger even than the northern whelps, a Tyrell marriage is not feasible, nor particularly desirable.”

 

“Gods be good, at least one of my children has sense,” the Lady of Dorne leant back in her chair and frowned disapprovingly at her youngest son. “Oberyn, if you have something other than objections or japes to offer, now would be the time. If not, escort your sister to her chambers; all this nonsense has tired her as much as it has I.”

 

_Yes, Mother, that is the reason I am so tired._ Elia mustered a grateful smile from somewhere deep inside before offering Oberyn her hand. She rose from her seat, thanks much more to her brother’s help than she was willing to show. Doran made to join them, but their mother snapped a few words about ‘affairs of the state’, and so he settled back down without a word.

 

Oberyn could only roll his eyes at his brother’s passivity, amusing in light of his own speed at heeding the Lady’s command. Elia bit back a smile and let her free hand fall to Doran’s shoulder as she walked past. Her fingers brushed lightly over his tunic, her thumb and forefinger pinching together in a quick squeeze. She felt a slight twitch, his only acknowledgement and acceptance of her sympathy.

 

These were their roles; the resigned heir, the hot-blooded younger brother, and the mild-tempered sister to keep the peace. Their mother might have become the impatient, cold, and calculating Lady, or that too may be an act. The anger and panic was genuine, but the other behaviour could be an act. The Lady herself had drilled the need for composure into them as children.

 

“You are never alone,” she would murmur into their ears at night. “This is Dorne, and someone is always watching. You must fulfill their expectations, my sweet, forever and always. There is nothing so dangerous as an idle, disappointed Dornishman.”

 

“She is hatching something,” Oberyn whispered as they emerged from their mother’s solar. Elia tightened her grip on his arm and smiled faintly at the guards waiting in the corridor. Brother and sister turned, Elia urging Oberyn towards the pools to which he relented after a brief scowl. A guard soon fell into step behind them, Elia’s own for Oberyn sneered at the suggestion that he needed one.

 

“What could she possibly be up to?” Elia finally asked, the guard a safe enough distance behind.

 

A pair of maids passed them, arms loaded with baskets and fabrics. Oberyn watched them pass, eyes smouldering when the younger of the two caught his eye, blushed, and scampered away. Elia struggled not to laugh, a smile on her face that would be expected of a bemused, indulgent older sister. Only her fingernails, pushing hard into his arm, belied her impatience.

 

Oberyn smirked and dropped his voice so low that even she strained to hear. “Ravens fly at all hours. She sends messages daily to the Red Keep. They arrive twice as often.”

 

Elia brushed aside a tremor of alarm. “Our dear uncle resides there,” she countered, forcing a dismissive tone.

 

“And since when has the Lady of Dorne needed daily contact with her brother?” Oberyn kept his face impassive, but she saw the hard set to his jaw. “She is planning something, and keeping us in the dark while subjecting everyone to these pointless family debates.”

 

“They’re not pointless,” Elia tilted her head to momentarily rest it against his shoulder. “Honourable candidates were mentioned.”

 

Oberyn said nothing, but she pressed on, voice rising now that they were onto safer topics. “The north sounds exciting. Did you know, brother, that I have never seen snow?”

 

“The north is no place for you,” was the curt reply.

 

“It is just a bit of cold,” she shrugged. “Dorne has withstood dragon fire-a bit of fluffy ice shouldn’t be a problem.”

 

“You cannot endure a northern winter.”

 

Her playfulness vanished then, in the heat of indignation. “Are you forgetting who I am, little brother?”

 

Oberyn’s lips twitched, a smirk desperate to break free. “How can I, sister, when you insist on calling me ‘little brother’?”

 

Her mood was too sour for a smile. “A princess of Dorne, descended from Nymeria herself-the Lady’s own daughter. I can endure no less than any other Dornishwoman.”

 

Oberyn’s face darkened, a frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. “Elia, your health suffers here-“

 

“As it always has,” she lifted her head from his shoulder with a delicate sigh. “Perhaps it is the heat that plagues me so. The north might bring me back to my strength.”

 

“There are times, dear sister of mine, that I cannot tell if you are serious or not,” Oberyn tightened his hold on her arm for a second. “Could you really leave all of Dorne for a second-best wolf pup and a mound of fluffy ice?”

 

_Leave Dorne, or you dear brother?_ Even as he neared eighteen, Oberyn still had his moments of petulance. If he had his way, Elia would not marry beyond the borders of Dorne. And yet, this was an improvement from years past. Before he could not abide the thought of marrying her beyond the streets of Sunspear.

 

She understood his concern. For all her bravado, anything north of the Dornish Mountains seemed daunting. The Seven Kingdoms were vast and diverse, but Dorne stood that much further apart. It was unique, her country, but not all others appreciated its uniqueness. Elia wasn’t sure how she would fare so far from her home; she didn’t know if she could be anything other than Dornish.

 

“You worry like an old woman,” she admonished lightly. “Enough of this northern talk; you and I will likely never agree. And, more to the point, our Lady mother seems especially disinclined to agree. I suppose I must go without the snow.”

 

“You wouldn’t know what to do with snow if you ever had it,” Oberyn smirked as they neared the archway to the garden dais. The insolent brat thought he had won the argument. Well, since she hadn’t the energy to keep squabbling all day, she supposed he had, in some way.

 

It was bright outside, but not as warm as the days can get in Dorne. Winter comes here too, though the chill was nothing like the chill north of the Dornish Mountains.

 

_They would have snow there_ , she thought absently. _Perhaps I should go there to have my snow._

 

The slight drop in temperature had done nothing to change the way of the gardens, and Elia prayed that nothing ever would. The sounds of splashing and stomping feet were practically blanketed by the sound of childish shrieks and laughter. Elia smiled broadly at the sight of so many children at play. Pure, utter joy was the one thing the gardens had in abundance.

 

Today, it had that, and even a pregnant good-sister lounging in the middle of the dais, a plate of blood oranges being waved away impatiently. “Take them away, they are overripe!”

 

“Alas, so are you, dear sister, but I pray that my foolish brother does not dare send you back,” Oberyn turned his smirk instantly into a charming smile. Elia rolled her eyes.

 

“He would not dare to try,” Mellario of Norvos raked her eyes sharply over the figure of her good-brother and then turned to look at Elia. “Is there any woman in the world he won’t turn that leer on?”

 

“’Leer’? You wound me, dear sister.”

 

“Not really, but I could if my dear brother wishes,” Mellario’s voice still carried the slightly heavier accent of her native country, but she looked and sounded utterly Dornish in that moment.

 

Elia didn’t bother to withhold her laughter, dropping Oberyn’s arm to sink into a chair near the other princess. “You know, sister, he might enjoy that more than you know.”

 

“He does have a thirst for women of violent delights, doesn’t he?” Mellario took Elia’s hand in her own and frowned before covering it with her other hand. “You’re freezing, again. Will you still not listen to reason?”

 

Elia felt her smile droop a bit. “Not you as well, Mellario. I have Oberyn and mother for these sort of headaches.”

 

Mellario looked away from Elia and glared at Oberyn. “Is it too much, in truth? The girl’s blood is thin, and weak. She needs meat, the bloodier the better-not all that fruit she nibbles at each day.”

 

“I don’t like meat,” Elia did her best not to pout, though she suspected she failed.

 

Oberyn shrugged elegantly, infinitely more at ease now that he had a partner in badgering his sister. “It’s better than what the maester would have you do.”

 

“A fool,” Mellario interjected vehemently. “A fool in chains, and you let him poke and prod and pour his vile concoctions down your throat. A bit of meat, girl, and you’ll be fine. We see this all the time on Norvos-and the solution is always the same.”

 

Elia sighed and patted Mellario’s hand. “The leeches are not so bad, and they do help. And it is only on certain days that I suffer so. Most days are not terrible-“

 

“How will you birth babes in this state?” Mellario shook her head. “Haven’t you any sense, Elia?”

 

Elia pursed her lips and bit back a giggle. “I shall worry about birthing babes when there is one in my womb. Though I fear without a marriage agreement, that time is still far off. Birthing babes is more your concern than mine, sister.”

 

Mellario smiled then, coy and devious all at once. “Since when does it take marriage for a woman to worry about birthing babes? Your brother, I’m sure, can tell you all about that.”

 

“You make light of my honour,” Oberyn protested with a grin as devious as Mellario’s own.

 

“Such sparse material can hardly be treated heavily,” Mellario countered, her hand traveling up to cup Elia’s cheek. “I’ll not waste my breath lecturing now, because you never listen anyway. But you will be wanting that meat, sister, when babes are your concern.”

 

Elia laughed, turning her face to press a light kiss to her good-sister’s palm. “When they are, perhaps I will. However, these days my concerns are reserved for husbands.”

 

“And the leeches,” Oberyn added, a nod towards the open doorway. “For here comes the aster-he looks like he has a fresh batch for you.”

 

Her laughter dried immediately, gone in a huff of air and stifled aggravation.

 

She hated bleeding days.

 

~0~


	2. Part Two

~278 A.L.~

 

It was like Oberyn to laugh at her discomfort.

 

“And you thought you’d be able to live in the North,” he remarked, a tad smugly, while Elia attempted to control her shivering.

 

“Ability has nothing to do with it,” she managed to retort. “Cold is cold; acknowledging it doesn’t mean I haven’t the ability to live with it.”

 

“A fierce statement, one that would probably be more impressive if you didn’t look so miserable,” he laughed once more before putting her hand on his arm and guiding her towards the castle proper. “And besides, Storm’s End is no Winterfell. It’s much worse there.”

 

“I haven’t the slightest idea why you keep nattering on about the northern match,” Elia smiled her most genial smile and dug her nails into his arm, though she doubted he could feel it through his thick cloak. “You really should learn to let things lie, little brother. And if you insist on carrying on as such, our dear Lady Mother may reconsider the north, just to teach you a lesson.”

 

“Your threats need improvement, sister mine,” Oberyn’s lips twisted up into a smirk. “However, your delivery is much improved.”

 

He looked down at her then, turning his smirk into something infinitely more affectionate. The improvements did not stop at her delivery of threats, as they both know. The Lady of Dorne had announced their invitation to the tourney at Storm’s End just a month past, and that month had not been easy. The Lady had a daughter to put on display, and looking closely at Elia, she had found that daughter wanting. Elia was too pale, too frail, too sickly, and too thin. A woman needed curves, the Lady explained, along with a healthy blush to the cheeks and a twinkle in the eye.

 

Elia’s eyes were often tired and dark, and her skin too pale for that healthy pink blush. She wasn’t nearly as thin as the Lady proclaimed, but her body was more sharp angles and tight skin than it was soft and curvaceous. Her greatest feature was her hair, a thick mane of black shine that fell down her back in curls. The hair, the Lady insisted, must be taken care of.

 

But also the diet and the remedies. The maester was sent away, his mutterings on the build up of humours and heavy blood ignored completely. Along with him went the leeches and the potions, something Elia lamented not for a minute. However, her Lady Mother’s newfound dedication to the medical knowledge of Norvos was less than well-received. 

 

Gone were the fruits and salads Elia preferred. In their place were plates and plates of meat, with bits of cheese and bread here and there to accompany it. The Lady insisted her daughter eat everything set before her, and that was often more than what Elia would normally eat in a day, let alone one meal.

 

The change came with fights and refusals, and ended with icy commands and stern looks. Elia’s stomach handled the change not as well as the Lady liked, and the first week was fraught with arguments and an abundance of nausea. Elia could concede that her mother’s new regimen had yielded results. She not as tired all the time, and she had put on some weight, but the smell of meat was now enough to make her stomach roll.

 

Her Lady Mother believed the trade to be adequate. Elia, wisely, held her tongue.

 

In front of the Lady, that is.

 

“I’ll be as fat as an auroch at this speed,” she complained, hand running over the flat of her stomach. “And if she insists on feeding me so much, I’ll be sick again-this time on purpose.”

 

“Well, at least the bleedings will stop,” Oberyn’s eyed a passing buxom serving girl, though Elia wasn’t sure if it was the girl’s figure or the wine jug she carried that drew her brother’s attention.

 

“Stop it,” she chided him gently. “You’re not here to indulge your usual perversions. You’re here to keep me company, while all this dreadful pageantry is trumpeting about.”

 

“You’re the only person I’ve met to hate a tourney.”

 

“My bloodlust is sadly underdeveloped for a Dornish princess, I know,” Elia tugged her brother closer, tilting her head just slightly so to rest it against his arm as they walked. “And if you cared a whit for my health, you would sit in the stands and bother me more about the northern match instead of what you’re actually doing.”

 

“I’m the one competing, and your health is in jeopardy,” that damnable smirk was back on his face. “You’re becoming increasingly selfish in your old age.”

 

She pinched him for that, hand slipping inside his cloak and fingers viciously twist a bit of skin through his shirt. Oberyn straightened his back, the only indication of his discomfort, and continued to ogle passing girls, be they servant or not.

 

“That will get you into trouble with an indignant father or two,” she warned, though most decidedly unconcerned. Oberyn would do what he wanted, and there was little hope of   
changing that. But Elia must do her sisterly duty in some fashion or the other.

 

“And _that_ will get you trouble whether you go looking for it or not.”

 

Elia followed her brother’s gaze. She recognized the red and gold of the banners and her stomach turned on the spot. She pulled gently on Oberyn’s arm, trying to discreetly turn him in the opposite direction before a situation could arise. The whole castle was already buzzing about the icy encounter between the matriarch of Dorne and the patriarch of the Rock. And her little brother would only, and quite happily, add to the fire.

 

“Remember how cold and frail I am?” she prodded him when he failed to follow. He looked down at her then and she smiled as softly as ever. But her eyes held a warning, and perhaps a touch of their mother, because he yielded without complaint. 

 

Her triumph was, however, painfully short lived. A pack of lions had detached themselves from the group and made to intercept them. Elia would like to avoid a confrontation, but she refused to run away. 

 

 _Let them come_ , she thought, the words a bit too bitter to say out loud. _Let the lions come and roar-that's all they're good for, after all_.

 

Oberyn seemed unworried, as he would since it was Cersei Lannister and her little ladies all approaching. He was assessing his bride-not-to-be, and Elia saw a dim gleam of approval there. And though it annoyed her fiercely, she could not fault him for it. Even now, at eleven, the little lady was something beautiful to behold. From her golden curls to her emerald eyes, Elia could see how enchanting the girl would be in a few years time.

 

"Princess Elia, Prince Oberyn," the girl smiled a truly feral smile, dipped ever so slightly in the tiniest curtesy.

 

"Lady Cersei," Oberyn nodded formally, inclined his head towards her and the others behind her. A slight titter started up in the back of the crowd. Elia bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at all the blushes and wondering looks her brother garnered for such a small gesture. He was not particularly handsome, not like the Lady Cersei's twin, but she had heard of the mutterings about the exotic appeal of a Dornishman. And Oberyn with his dark eyes, black hair, and olive complexion was most differently exotic-to these ladies at least.

 

Lady Cersei had turned towards Elia, clearly waiting for some sort of acknowledgement. Elia donned that familiar gentle smile, stepped into the role of sweet, soft princess as easily as she stepped into her slippers every morning. She said nothing, but dipped down into a curtsy even smaller than Cersei's own. She kept her eyes locked with the younger girl's, remembered her visit to Casterly Rock just two years past, and wondered if the girl always seemed so abhorrent or if it was merely the reminder her father’s insult that turned Elia’s stomach so.

 

“How have you been, these past years?” Cersei batted wide, innocent eyes at Elia. “You left so abruptly from the Rock-we barely had time to say our proper goodbyes.”

 

And if the girl thought Elia didn’t know how to play this game, she was sorely mistaken. 

 

“Have no fear, Cersei my dove, your father did not let us go without the finest farewell the Rock could manage.”

 

Oberyn did not bother to cover his snort of amusement. There was a slight flash of anger in those pretty green eyes before the younger girl recovered.

 

“Yes, my father is a man of high standards. He would have seen you off in the manner befitting the lords and ladies of the Dorne.”

 

“Prince,” Oberyn corrected, a touch of boredom to his words. “And princess. The lords and ladies of the Dorne are different houses.”

 

His tone implied the girl should know that, and she was stupid for forgetting it. The lioness stood up straight, a slight squaring of the shoulders that told of her indignation. But before she can respond, another of her group spoke suddenly.

 

“How lovely it must be,” the child said with a sigh. “I mean, to be a princess forever.”

 

To that, Elia could not help but smile. “It can be quite pleasant, on occasion.”

 

Cersei smiled, bared her teeth like a lioness must do when they see easy prey in their midst. "To be a princess forever, yes that sounds wonderful. But I imagine that to be a queen for _most_ of your life would be infinitely better."

 

Elia tilted her head slightly, her previous smile slipping and sliding until it was a perfect echo of her brother's smirk. "Imagine you must, for what would you know of being either, _Lady_ Cersei?"

 

The lioness dropped her smile and seemed ready to quarrel. That lovely pale skin was now stained with large red spots and the girl's nostrils positively flared. One of her little friends tugged hesitantly on her sleeve. The little lady of Lannister slapped away that hand and retreated to her father's party in an angry swirl of silken skirts.

 

Elia merely waved one hand lazily in farewell.

 

"You enjoyed that," Oberyn whispered into her ear.

 

Elia laughed. "So did you, little brother."

 

“What was not to enjoy? You complain too much of mother’s interference-I think it’s finally doing you some good. I wager I could strap some armour on you and put you on a horse, and you would unseat every lord in the land this day.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “How like a man, to think one needs a lance and a horse to unseat an opponent.”

 

He gave her a pained look. “Ugh, but now you sound just like mother-do stop.”

 

He tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm before she could respond. Elia laughed softly as he led her back into the castle proper, her laughter turning to sighs as the cold was left somewhat behind.

 

Oberyn glanced down at her, an unhappy frown replacing his smirk. “You’re not dressed for this weather, sister. Haven’t you any thicker cloaks? You’ll not last five minutes through the joust in that silk sheet.”

 

“Now who sounds like mother,” Elia chided gently, though she quickly abandoned the teasing when Oberyn managed to look even more disapproving. “Stop making that ridiculous face. I haven’t worn this for its decorative appeal. It’s the thickest cloak I have. It seems mother and I greatly underestimated how cold it would be.”

 

“You’ll be nothing more than ice by the end of the day,” Oberyn looked immensely put out. “You better stay inside the castle-“

 

“I will not,” Elia dug her nails into his arm once more, a firm look of resolve on her face. “Has that altercation with Cersei Lannister already slipped your mind? The girl is vicious and arrogant. I will not give that golden brat the slightest opportunity to say that I’m hiding from her or her father. I’d rather die of cold than let that happen.”

 

“And you think I’m overly proud.”

 

“I’m not overly proud; I have the exact amount of pride befitting a princess of Dorne.”

 

Laughter broke out at her statement, though not from her brother. Elia did her best not to stumble, tried her best not to show how startled she was. She was desperate to fight off the blush, knowing that the paleness of her skin made it all that more prominent. Oberyn, the unhelpful lout, was too busy laughing with their eavesdropper to even consider her discomfort.

 

A quick glance behind her and she was momentarily relieved. She wasn’t sure how she failed to recognize her uncle’s laughter; it was almost entirely the same as Oberyn’s obnoxious bellow. She wrinkled her nose at said uncle, though it seemed an irritated niece mattered not a whit to Prince Lewyn Martell.

 

Or to the men gathered just behind him.

 

Elia managed to pull a smile from deep down inside and did her best to put the serene southern princess shine to it that she worked so hard to perfect. Whether or not she was successful, she could not say. Not one of the men smirking at her discomfort gave her any sort of indication. 

 

She dropped into a curtsy, more for the reprieve than any haste to propriety. She pinched Oberyn on her way, felt her brother bend in the slightest of bows. So like him, to do the very least; she must remember to kick him sharply when they were alone.

 

“My prince,” she murmured softly, eyes slightly downcast as she rose from her curtsy. And then, less formally: “Uncle.”

 

“Ah, the weather must be truly affecting you, my dear,” Lewyn winked at her playfully. “That’s the coldest greeting I’ve ever had from you.”

 

“I fear I was unprepared for this type of winter. I have such little warmth to give, I thought it best to save it solely for our dear prince.”

 

“It appears the princesses of Dorne are as fierce and witty as its princes,” Ser Oswell Whent, if she recalled correctly, offered Elia a seemingly genuine smile before nudging the knight at his right. “You neglected to mention as such, in all your tales of home.”

 

Elia spared not a glance for the Sword in the Morning. “Ser Arthur has a habit of omitting important details. A malady that has plagued him since childhood.”

 

She wondered if any of them knew how tightly she held Oberyn at that moment, just to keep him at bay. The muscles in her brother’s arm were taut with tension; she could feel his anger, so strong it was bitter on her tongue.

 

They were all of them spared a spectacle by the soft smile of a dragon. “Whatever else their similarities, at least the smiles of Dornish princesses are sweeter than those of Dornish princes.”

 

Elia felt her lips twitch. “I’m afraid we haven’t the time to teach our princes to smile sweetly. Much of their time goes to the study of inappropriate and exaggerated boasting, and the rest is spent in practice.”

 

He laughed then, and it was not an unpleasant sound. Rhaegar Targaryen was more striking than handsome, and how could he be otherwise? Jaime Lannister, even only at eleven, was handsome, even beautiful in his own way. But Rhaegar had the dragon’s silvery-white hair and violet eyes that made it impossible to pass over the man. She tried her best not to let her eyes linger, though she was certain she must have failed. Oberyn’s barely muffled chuckles were only one of many indicators.

 

“Ah, dear prince, allow me to introduce my sister’s daughter,” Lewyn shook his head, though he never lost his smirk. “I had hoped to have left this abuse behind in Dorne, but alas my dear niece has taken to her own lessons very well.”

 

“So much so that the cold nature of winter entirely escaped her notice,” Oberyn picked at Elia’s cloak once more. “Have heart, Uncle. She’ll not last half the day in this scrap. We shall pass some of the joust in relative peace.”

 

The men shared a laugh and Elia did her best not to look too put out. Only Prince Rhaegar abstained, choosing instead to step forward while undoing the clasp of his own cloak. She hadn’t a moment to prepare, for never had the possibility of it crossed her mind. But soon enough, the prince of the realm had removed his own thick fur cloak and pressed it into her hands.

 

“Only a foolish man would want such a sweet smile sent away,” the prince smiled reassuringly in the face of her sounds of protest. “It is winter, dear princess; we must preserve what warmth there is.”

 

“My prince is too kind,” she managed to stutter.

 

He laughed once more, in that same pleasant fashion. “Your prince has many cloaks to spare, but Dorne has only the one princess, yes?”

 

Later, when Oberyn was walking her to her rooms and she was running her fingers over the red embroidered dragon at the breast, her brother confronted her outright. “You were blushing.”

 

She did not look at him, nor did she remove her fingers from the dragon. “It was cold, brother.”

 

“It was not that kind of blush.”

 

“You’ve become some scholar in the nature of blushes?”

 

Oberyn stopped, not two feet from her door, and turned her around to look her in the eye. “He’s the heir, Elia.”

 

“I know who he is.”

 

“Ah, yes, you do know. But do you understand?”

 

Of course she did. “Just because he is destined for a golden beast does not mean I cannot smile at him.”

 

Oberyn huffed, a sound of pure annoyance. “You know little of the minds of men, sister.”

 

She dropped his arm. “But I know more than enough about the minds of princes, _little_ brother.”

 

~0~

 

Their Lady Mother noticed the cloak as well, though she said nothing on the matter. One lifted eyebrow and that was all the commentary the Lady of Dorne would provide. Elia was immediately dismissed to wash and prepare for the joust, a flood of maids trailing at her feet. The princess knew better than to resist, especially now, and submitted herself to their ministrations. A bath in scented water, three maids to towel her dry (one maid for her hair alone), and another two maids to dress her in her smallclothes.

 

Elia winced, but uttered not one complaint as the maids came forth with her dress. The voluminous skirts and tight bodices of the northern styles were not something to which Elia was accustomed. She much rather preferred the breezy silks and free flow of the Dornish dress; these costumes were far too restrictive. Even the slippers that they wore in the north were tight and pinching, and she had not a hope to switch for any of her sandals as her Lady Mother had warned her endlessly of the cold and the horror of frostbitten toes.

 

The dress they brought to her was not the one Mother had selected the day before. Elia frowned at the red and orange material, traced the golden embroidery with one finger while a nervous redheaded maid swore to her that the change was done at the behest of the Lady of Dorne. Elia had no real protest to make, for the dress was lovely as any other in her chest, but the green one from before had been her favourite of all the new ones.

 

The maids did their work well, two pulling the dress onto her frame, tying up laces and smoothing out skirts before bringing the slippers. Another maid worked feverishly at Elia’s hair, braiding an intricate net of hair at the top of her head before allowing the rest to fall down in smooth, silky curls. One last maid fluttered about in front of Elia’s face with all the face paints the Lady had recently purchased. Elia waved away much of the white pastes, her own skin already too pale for her tastes. The lip paints and the kohl for her eyes remained and when the maid stepped away, Elia’s face felt not as heavy as she feared it would.

 

Perfumes were dotted at her wrists and along the nape of her neck. The redheaded maid was fussing with the neckline of the dress and the modesty of Elia’s small breasts when they heard the beginnings of the argument. Oberyn and the Lady were in fierce disagreement over something, so much so that even a few of the maids were casting curious glances to the closed chamber door.

 

Elia pushed away her maids, impatiently tugging on the last of the rings herself and stilling for a tense few seconds while a heavy, golden necklace was fastened around her neck. The bright red ruby pendant rested nicely on the bare skin just above the swell of her breasts, but it felt colder than it should and Elia could not help but flinch when it first touched her skin.

 

However, the pendant and all other concerns were lost in her rush to see stop the commotion outside. She all but flew out the door into Mother’s chambers, unsurprised to see both mother and son red-faced and glaring but still confused as to why.

 

Oberyn looked her way, his eyes narrowing in rage. “Really, Mother? If you insist on taking up lion-baiting, can’t you find anyone else to be your bait? Why dangle Elia in front of them? Have you no better use for your only daughter?”

 

“Oberyn, stop it!” Elia felt as surprised as her mother looked, but she pressed on regardless. “Must you make such a scene? Half the castle can hear you.”

 

Oberyn shook his head. “Look at yourself! Don’t you see what she’s doing? That dress, that cloak-even the bloody jewellery is obvious!”

 

“She looks beautiful,” the Lady interjected, her tone calm and even now that Elia was present. “A true Dornish princess.”

 

“Dressing her like a dragon will only bring her further in Lannister scrutiny. You think Tywin Lannister will stand for such an obvious rebuke?”

 

This was getting further and further out of hand. Elia could see the servants watching with open curiosity, could hear the shuffling footsteps of the maids as they tried quietly to eavesdrop. “Oberyn, I said stop it. Why do you always do this?”

 

“Elia, you don’t under-“

 

“I am not a fool, little brother!” Elia stepped closer to Oberyn and lowered her voice to an angry hiss. “I know what this is, everyone knows what this is. But as it is, it is acceptable. The colours of House Martell-yes, red is one of our colours as well!-and a gift from the prince himself-which only a fool would neglect to wear. Our mother knows what she is doing, and if the lions are upset, let them be! They at least will have the common sense not to rage and rail like a common tavern-dweller!”

 

It was, perhaps, a bit too far. Oberyn’s eyes darkened in a way she was not used to seeing, at least not intended for her. 

 

Mother sighed, a sound heavy with disappointment. “Why can’t you be a little like your brother? A man needs calm, Oberyn; some small fount of it, at the very least.”

 

He left after that, spine straight, shoulders stiff. Elia watched him go silently, grateful for the weight of the Lady’s hand on her shoulder for she wanted nothing more than to run after her little brother. Squabbles between the siblings wasn’t unheard of, but Elia knew their history well. She was always the first to apologize, the first to relent. But this time, it would be different-it had to be different.

 

“He is not a child anymore,” Mother said that which was plainly on Elia’s mind. “He must learn, at some point, or there will be no hope for him.”

 

Elia said nothing, didn’t even flinch when Mother promptly put Oberyn out of mind and turned to assess her daughter. “Good, but you look pale-weaker than you did in the morning. There’s a broth on the table, still hot.”

 

Now it was Elia’s turn to sigh. “Mother, must I-“

 

“Yes, you must,” the Lady appraised her daughter shrewdly, a contemplative look in her eyes. “A little red in the cheeks, and you’ll be fine-beautiful, even. But the broth is a must; it will give you strength enough to sit through the whole tourney. Finish it; I suppose I must see to your escort.”

 

~0~

 

“Smile, dear niece, there’s much talk of the sweet smiles of Dornish princesses among the jousters today. Many are eager to win one for themselves.”

 

Elia rolled her eyes, tugging impatiently on her uncle’s arm. “You flatter so terribly, Uncle.”

 

“I flatter accordingly,” Lewyn corrected, content to stroll far too leisurely along the path to the tourney grounds. The prince’s cloak kept Elia warmer than her own, but the wind was still sharp and biting as it flew into their faces. Elia longed for the covered canopy of the tourney seats, a slight shelter from the cold air, but a shelter nonetheless. And if they arrived early enough, there might be enough time to send Lewyn to check on Oberyn, who had stomped off to get armored almost immediately after the argument before.

 

She didn’t want to worry so much, and she didn’t want to be the one to go running after him. But Oberyn was hotheaded and brash-and about to participate in the joust. To attempt the competition with such dismal peace of mind wouldn’t be to his advantage. Elia would happily give up being right if it stopped her brother from coming to harm.

 

But Uncle Lewyn seemed far less concerned. “And really, we wouldn’t want all your mother’s efforts to go to waste, would we? All those eligible sons of great houses, burning with curiosity over a smile that even the Prince himself has praised with such pretty words-it’s all your mother has dreamed of for years.”

 

“Uncle, you make it sound like you’re bringing me to market, displaying Dornish wares. Can a tourney not simply be a tourney?”

 

“Niece, you know as well as I that things are never just what they are meant to be,” Lewyn faced forward, eyes squinting as if he was trying to find something particular in the distance. “And the same goes for people as well.”

 

She wanted to laugh. “Very true, as you are now, Uncle. Whatever are you looking for?”

 

“Whoever,” was the quiet correction. Elia paused mid-step, turning her head to glare suspiciously at her uncle. Lewyn merely grinned before turning around to bow before his prince. Elia dipped down into her curtsy gracefully, slipping on a soft smile for the dragon prince.

 

“My prince,” she murmured demurely, a tone of voice which caused her uncle to snort. She spared him a quick glare, wondering exactly what was happening here and how she had not seen this coming.

 

“So, you are going to brave the cold for the tourney,” Rhaegar returned her smile with one of his own. She noted that he wore a cloak that was almost identical to the she wore, the black fur and red stitching in stark contrast to his white skin and silvery hair. “May I escort you the rest of the way?”

 

Elia barely stifled a short laugh. She knew she looked flustered-she felt flustered, but as she moved to say her uncle was her escort, Lewyn dropped her arm and offered her hand to the prince. “I believe I have to check on my lances before the joust starts; Elia would be delighted if my lord would lead her to the tourney grounds.”

 

Elia did not recall mentioning anything about delight. “Lances?” she chose instead to question, allowing the prince to place her hand on his arm and guide her to his side just as Lewyn stepped back.

 

“Of course, lances,” Lewyn had the gall to wink salaciously at her. “You wouldn’t want me to compete with inferior lances, would you niece?”

 

“Never, dear uncle,” Elia returned, tone deliberately devoid of emotion. “You best go and check-my delicate nerves will be in a terrible state until you do.”

 

Lewyn shook his head. “The gentle Dornishwoman,” he clucked his tongue in mock dismay, bowed to his prince once more, and sauntered away.

 

Rhaegar smiled at her once more before gesturing that they should continue. “You are upset,” he said, curiosity evident in his words.

 

She shook her head. “Yes, but with my dear uncle. I fear this has him thinking that he is terribly clever, or something of the like. However, if the trade is for the pleasure of my lord’s company, then perhaps it is not so onerous.”

 

“Only ‘perhaps’,” Rhaegar laughed. “Your uncle is not the only Martell with a problem of cleverness.”

 

“Alas, I know the limits of my own cleverness far better than my uncle. For instance, though I am pleased and very humbled, I cannot understand why the crowned prince of the realm would conspire for time with a girl he barely knows.”

 

Rhaegar laughed, genuinely amused by something beyond her grasp. “A surprise then, very well.”

 

“My lord?”

 

“I am afraid, my dear princess, that the conspiracy is entirely your doing,” Rhaegar smiled, a teasing quirk of the lips that confused her. “After all, how can a man not desire more of the sweet smile of a Dornish princess when they’ve only been permitted a miniscule sampling?”

 

Elia shook her head. “I did not know, my lord, that the Targaryen prince was such a flatterer.”

 

“He is not,” Rhaegar conceded with easy grace. “Usually, he is not. But I fear the Martell princess is to blame. Her mere presence inspires such rare behaviour from the prince.”

 

“Now you are just mocking, my lord.”

 

“Rhaegar.”

 

She stumbled then, too surprised and yet not surprised enough. This had gotten out of hand and well beyond the grasp of her wits. “I don’t understand, my lor-“

 

“Rhaegar,” he repeated, softer than before. “Please Elia, you must call me by my name.”

 

“But why?”

 

He looked pensive, glancing at her with some strange uncertainty before pulling it all behind another soft smile. “You will understand. I promise.”

 

The tourney passed in a blur of confusion, thundering hooves, and splintered lances. Elia sat beside her mother, acutely aware of their proximity to both the House Targaryen and House Lannister. Red and gold to her left, red and black to her right, and she could feel Tywin Lannister’s glare burning a hole through the embroidered dragon on the breast of her cloak.

 

When it was over, when rider after rider had fallen, when her brother fell from his seat at the hands of the dragon prince, when that same dragon prince splintered twelve of Lewyn Martell’s carefully inspected lances, she joined the spectators in a rousing cheer for the champion. The prince smiled broadly at his people before dismounting his horse and taking the customary wreath of winter roses in hand.

 

Then, in front of far too many of the great houses of the realm, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen made his way through the assembled lords and ladies and placed that wreath in the lap of Princess Elia Martell of Dorne. Those who were close enough to see would later claim that the Dornish princess smiled sweetly at her admirer, even blushed prettily when he brushed a kiss to the back of her right hand.

 

Not much was said of how the princess kept her trembling left hand clenched tightly in her lap, or of how her whole body shook terribly the second she realized what was about to happen.

 

Absolutely nothing was said of how the Lady of Dorne spent the entire time staring directly at Lord Tywin Lannister, something like a smirk on her face.

 

It was later, at the final feast of the tourney, that King Aerys Targaryen stood in the Baratheon great hall and announced the betrothal of his eldest son to the princess of Dorne. It was an announcement that was, ultimately, quite unnecessary.

 

~0~


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains adult content.

~279 A.L.~

 

“Remember Nymeria.”

 

The weather was warming, though not enough to warrant any real celebration. Winter still reigned supreme in most of Westeros, though at least the snow had lessened at King’s Landing. It turned out that Oberyn was right; Elia could not abide the soft fluffy ice after all.

 

However, she was still too proud to admit it.

 

He knew, though; she could tell from the way he was smiling, as if he was trying to hold in his laughter and likely to fail. She felt like kicking him, but knew she couldn’t manage, captive as she was by her mother’s maids. The Lady herself fluttered about, around the edges of the swarm besieging her daughter, snapping out what were meant to be reassuring missives.

 

“Remember Nymeria,” the Lady continued, hands clasped closely together in front of her. She looked not unlike their castellan back in Dorne, stomping around the guards to inspect for any deficiencies. “Remember Myriah, the first of our line to wed a dragon. Remember the bravery and the courage of your ancestors.”

 

“And if you have a scant second, try to remember Rhaegar,” Oberyn finally spoke, unable to contain himself further.

 

“Oberyn!”

 

“I’m merely thinking of my dear future good-brother and his well-being,” Oberyn was in a right mood and not even a chastisement from the Lady would deter him. “You keep telling her to remember Nymeria, remember Myriah, remember House Martell-if she took a brief minute to remember Rhaegar, I’m sure the prince’s wedding night would pass happier.”

 

Elia laughed, even as her mother scolded. The entire situation seemed utterly absurd in that moment, so much so that the laughter took hold of her and didn’t want to let her go. Her whole body shook and the maids stopped what they were doing and tried to hold her up.

 

“Enough Elia,” Mother warned, though her tone gentler than before. “Enough, sweetling. It is going to be a long day.”

 

It was difficult, but the Lady was right, as she tended to be. Elia bit down on her tongue, forced the laughter and panic back down into her stomach. She took a deep breath and then straightened, spine straight, face forward, and shoulders squared.

 

“It’s not a battlefield, sister; it’s your wedding.”

 

The Lady moved to stand in front of Elia, caught her daughter’s gaze with her own. “Men know nothing,” the Lady told her. “It’s not their fault, but it’s true. Begrudge him nothing, or Rhaegar for the matter. But you, my girl, you know don’t you?”

 

Elia watched her mother come closer, made herself as silent and still as possible. The Lady placed one hand on Elia’s cheek, ran her thumb just across the cheekbone, and sighed. “My daughter.”

 

The maids stopped once again and every one of them backed up. Elia struggled to hold her mother’s gaze, struggled not to start shaking all over again. The Lady smiled, eyes shining with tears that would never be shed. “It’s all right to be afraid, even I was, once. But you must not forget your duty, to your family and to your husband. Show the whole world that you _are_ a daughter of Nymeria.”

 

The Lady stepped back, not waiting for her daughter to respond. Elia looked to her brother, saw the mirth still there, and still said nothing. The maids rushed forward once more, this time bringing the dress with them. Elia tried hard not to wince at the seemingly endless train of white, lace, and pearls. She closed her eyes when they began to tug the bodice into place, pulling, yanking the laces as tightly as possible. She forced tiny breaths out of her nose, knowing that she must become accustomed to this because her future consisted of a lifetime in these damnable gowns. No more light silk dresses, no more veils or sandals laced up her legs. She came here a girl of Dorne; she will remain to be a Targaryen wife.

 

She remembered little of what followed. Her mother disappeared to tend to her own dress and Oberyn disappeared with one of the more idle maids in tow. Elia remained in that state of silence while they finished preparing her. Sometime in between the dress and opening her eyes, the maids had adorned her black curls with red and orange roses, put satin slippers onto her feet, and draped her House’s cloak over her shoulders. Necklaces, rings, and bracelets had also appeared, so many that Elia felt weighed down by them all. The chain around her neck chafed, the rings pinched the skin of her fingers too tight, and the bracelets rubbed hard against the bones of her wrists.

 

Or maybe they didn’t-she no longer knew.

 

She married the prince in the Great Sept of Baelor, with hundreds of guests in attendance and thousands more cheering outside. Rhaegar seemed calm and unconcerned by the multitudes. Elia too was used to crowds, but the nature of it was different. She was unused to the sight of so many non-Dornish people screaming her name.

 

And they did scream, for reasons she didn’t understand. But she smiled for them all the same, that very smile that Rhaegar kept praising. She appeared the ever gentle, ever loving princess the entire way to the sept. Oberyn led her up the steps and she couldn’t see an end to the sea of people. Children clamoured upon the statue of Baelor the Blessed, waving their little hands at her when they saw her looking their way. She lifted a hand in greeting very briefly before Oberyn pulled her through the doors of the sept.

 

“They love you,” Oberyn whispered to her, so low even their Lady Mother couldn’t hear him clearly. “Best to keep it that way.”

 

“As always brother, your wisdom and sage advice are a boon to me,” she struggled to put some of her old fire into the words, tried to make him believe she wasn’t as scared as she truly was. It was not entirely successful. “Whatever will I do without your guiding hand?”

 

“Now, there’s my sister,” Oberyn laughed, loudly, and ignored the reprimanding look the Lady sent him. “I was starting to wonder who exactly I was handing off to Rhaegar.”

 

He looked at her, smirking so audaciously that she couldn’t help but a little laugh. “Mother is keeping you a good distance away during the ceremony, yes? It would be like you to try and make me laugh like a fool in front of the whole kingdom.”

 

“Of course, everyone else is too concerned with your sweet smile,” Oberyn pulled a face, looking so childish that she laughed again. “It seems like I’m the only one who enjoys your laugh. And it’s a good laugh-high pitched and undignified, the envy of all gentile noblewomen.”

 

She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing again, grabbed at the skin of his arm with her fingers and twisted viciously. “I fear for poor Doran; you’ll be the end of him with all your vulgar jokes and childish antics. Try to remember that not everyone in our family is as indulgent as I am, little brother.”

 

“And remember to be happy, elder sister,” Oberyn dropped his voice low once more. “I just need you happy, especially if I am expected to leave you here by yourself.”

 

She squeezed his arm, but gave no answer.

 

It was a pity, she thought later, to have to change cloaks just like that. She had been made up in the colours of House Martell that morning, from the flowers in her hair to the gems on her fingers. The black of House Targaryen was too stark to mix well with the oranges and golds that came with the reds. And really, why did they have to change cloaks anyhow? The prince had already given her his cloak back at Storm’s End, another one seemed redundant at this point. She almost opened her mouth to point this out, but her brain quickly took hold of her tongue, recognizing the hysteria for what it was.

 

The sept was crowded to the bursting point. She felt hot and uncomfortable, so much so that she barely kept up with the prayers of the High Septon. She remembered enough to say her parts, to make her promises and vows, but everything else faded into graceless noise. She felt Rhaegar’s hands on her cloak seconds before a brush of air skittered across her shoulders. The new cloak settled quickly onto her shoulders, the material unfamiliar, rough, and heavier than any other she had known.

 

_Remember Nymeria,_ she closed her eyes and tried to do just that. Rhaegar took her by the hand and helped her rise, the High Septon made all the formal declarations at their backs. The assembled nobles burst into applause when the prince pressed his lips to hers, and she smiled for them as prettily as she smiled for those outside.

 

The feast was at the Red Keep, and the food was good, the music loud, and everyone looked far too happy. She danced, more than was her custom, because now it was her duty to smile, to please, and to accept flattery with easy grace. Her mother sat close to the king and the queen, but not too close. The air around the royal pair was as tense and severe as it ever was. Another thing to which she must become accustomed.

 

The lions were there, for Tywin Lannister would not have it said that the red spear chased him from the Tower of the Hand. Cersei Lannister was there as well, a little lady brought to court with her father, smiling and laughing delightedly as if this all pleased her. Elia caught the lioness’s eye from time to time, saw more of the girl’s father there than perhaps even Lord Tywin recognized, and remembered that it would be ungracious to make a rival out of a child.

 

The king would make toast after toast, and everyone hastened to raise their cups. He smiled unpleasantly at that, Aerys did, and preened rather obviously. He, like Elia’s Lady Mother, seemed to reserve most of his contempt for the King’s Hand, several of the toasts made in Lord Tywin’s general direction. As the night wore on, the wine took its toll on the king, and the toasts were no longer festive or benign. Rhaegar departed from her side to try and help his mother handle his father, but the king would have none of it.

 

“I want that little Dornish flower bedded before I go anywhere!”

 

Cups were thrown at that point, and Oberyn gripped her hand a little too tightly as he led her in a dance on the floor. She avoided looking to her good father and the trouble Rhaegar no doubt had with the king. “They say he was mad even before the Duskendale debacle,” Oberyn whispered to her as the wedding guests tried to hide their uneasiness with more laughter and wine. “Be careful, sister, he is unpredictable at the best of times.”

 

And increasingly insistent on having his way all the time. Elia had barely finished her dance with Oberyn when she noticed Rhaegar looking right at her. There was an apology there, one she knew shamed him to have to give, and her heart, though still clenched tight with worry, beat a little faster at the sight of her husband’s face.

 

That they came for her not minutes later was neither surprising nor sudden. They put a chair underneath her, hoisting her up into the air so that all could see the princess in her finery before it was torn to shred by a storm of grasping hands. The men made bawdy jokes, tame in comparison to some she had heard at Dornish weddings, and carried her to the doors amidst a cacophony of whistles, howls, and lecherous comments.

 

Her slippers were taken before they took her through the doors. Elia felt their greedy fingers sliding up her calves, turned around in her chair and desperately sought her mother. The Lady remained in her seat at the high table, a look of utter satisfaction on her face. She looked back at Elia, lips moving to form familiar words and names.

 

_Remember Myriah,_ Elia held a breath, tried to remember and forget the sensation of strange hands pulling and groping at her legs. Oberyn had left her, eyes stormy and unhappy, but powerless to stop what must happen. He would shield her from this if he could, but traditions are traditions and the future queen was not someone allowed to turn her nose up at tradition.

 

They paraded her through the corridors of the keep, ripping and tearing away her clothing along the way. She was lifted off the chair only when they were immediately in front of the prince’s chambers. She heard the sounds of girlish laughter and shrieks and knew Rhaegar was not far behind. A large man, some lord of the Reach, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her off the chair. The jeers and jests increased in volume, hands tugged at her skirts and soon she felt a calloused hand inserted in between her breasts.

 

Elia stared at Ser Arthur Dayne challengingly, and the knight seemed to have a moment of hesitation before his eyes settled into a hard, unhappy look. His fingers gripped the front of her dress tight and then tore her bodice clear in half. The sound made her want to flinch, but she wouldn’t, not in front of him. She kept her face neutral, unconcerned; another vulgar remark was shouted in her ear, though it was meant for her husband. She forced a blush and another faint smile before dropping her eyes in false bashfulness-the perfect, demure princess.

 

They left her shift, though the sheer material kept nothing of her from their eyes. A few appreciative whistles intermingled with the jokes now, and continued even after they shut her in the room. She heard them beyond the door, knew she had little time left before Rhaegar would be pushed into the room with her.

 

She spent precious few minutes looking over the room. Great care had been given in the arrangements for the night. A fire burned in the fireplace, a large bearskin rug laid out in front of the hearth. The rest of the room was lit with candles, red and black with orange flames flickering just above. She smiled at that, smiled at the sight of the colors of House Targaryen in every drape, every sheet, every corner of the room. Even the bed was constructed of ebony wood, the furs on top black with blood red rose petals strewn over top.

 

The three-headed dragon was everywhere as well. It was carved into the black wood of the bed’s headboard, engraved on the silver and gold candleholders, stitched onto the drapes and tapestries. She stopped at a table set on the left side of the room, noted the dragons adorning the silver frame of the mirror set on the wall just above it. Here she removed that which the men had neglected, the rings and necklaces and baubles all. She dropped them onto the table, sighing in relief once she was free of them all.

 

Elia studied her reflection in the mirror, saw the toll of the day appearing around her eyes but none of the usual pale and sickliness that plagued her constantly at Sunspear. Mellario’s Norvosese treatment had done its work; her face no longer betrayed her weariness and frailty. She had not put on as much weight as the Lady had wished, but she had put on enough to give her curves a softness they had been lacking before. She looked, dare she say, healthier than she could ever remember looking.

 

She had her hands in her hair when the door opened to admit her husband. Rhaegar appeared in nothing more than his smallclothes and an undershirt, the guilt and shame from his father’s actions replaced with the pink flush of wine and anticipation. She turned at the hip to watch him enter, eyes glancing briefly at the multitudes at their doorway before turning back around. She heard the door shut, heard Rhaegar’s soft footsteps approaching, and purposefully continued her task with her hair.

 

His hands were soon on her shoulders. Elia looked up into the mirror, saw Rhaegar’s reflection, saw his eyes were trained on her face. He came close, closer than he had ever been before, and she could not stop a slight shudder at the touch of his chest to her back. He brought his face near her head, his lips brushed against her right ear. “Let me,” he whispered, his voice low and deep. 

 

She stopped her work with her hair, dropped her hands to the table top, and braced herself for the feel of his hands against her skin. His fingers danced up her neck, hesitated slightly and she offered up her thousandth smile of the day.

 

He was gentle as he removed the roses, fingers working deftly to free her hair of pins and ties before softly pulling the flowers loose. The hair strands the maids had pinned up in the morning fluttered down to her shoulders one by one. The flowers and pins were soon all gone, and her hair fell in its usual black waves down her back. Rhaegar threaded his fingers through those waves, pressed his nose against her head and inhaled the perfumes once before pulling away. “Come, Elia.”

 

_Nymeria, Nymeria, Nymeria,_ she chanted the name over and over again in her mind, forming a half prayer in those brief seconds she turned to face her husband. She knew that most new brides flush and drop their eyes, act coquettish or shy before their husbands. But she was from Dorne, and her mother’s voice echoed in her ears, shouting the names of all those brave women who came before her.

 

She looked him right in the eye, a half smile on her lips, and did not once cast her eyes down. His eyes seemed to smolder as they caught her own, a fire of lust and desire that looked so foreign on the prince she had come to know. He appeared to know what she was thinking for he never looked away as he pulled her to the bed.

 

Rhaegar seated himself on the edge of the bed, took her hand and led her to stand in front of him. The prince was tall, Elia’s head reached no higher than his shoulder when they stood side by side. But now he looked up at her as his hands let go of hers and settled themselves on her hips. She could feel the gooseflesh appearing on her skin as his hands ghosted along her stomach, up her ribs, and stopped just underneath the soft mounds of her breasts. She kept her eyes on him, kept that soft smile on her face, even as his eyes darkened and his mouth parted to let out a shaky breath.

 

His hands moved to her back, grabbing her suddenly in an iron grip before trailing downwards. They came to a stop at her hips once more and Rhaegar gave her slightest tug to pull her forward. His hands dropped to her legs as she obliged him, gripping them tightly before pulling the left leg forward, slipping his hand to her knee, and bringing it to rest on the bed beside his thigh. She braced her hands on his shoulders as he repeated the motion with her right leg, pulling her onto his lap before seizing her by the waist tight.

 

She felt him, hard underneath the inside of her right thigh. His breaths were becoming shorter, sharper, and she moved her leg just slightly over him to see what his reaction would be, to see how his eyes would change. His whole body seemed to tense, his eyes widened and then that fire came burning back with a vengeance.

 

His hands moved once again, bunching the soft material of her shift in his fists. She wasn’t surprised by the sounds of fabric tearing, not this time. She waited calmly for him to do his work, waited until she felt the fresh air on her naked flesh before moving her leg ever so slightly again.

 

“Elia,” Rhaegar moaned, a sound that seemed to force its way out of the very depths of his throat. It was a guttural sound, almost animalistic and enough to send her heart beating wildly in a way she could not remember it doing ever before. His hands clutched her hips once more, pulling her roughly until she was right up against him, only his thin smallclothes preventing the touch of their most sensitive parts.

 

She spoke to him, the first time she had done so since they were together in the sept, standing before the cheering masses. “I am going to kiss you, my prince.”

 

His breath caught in his throat, a sound that sent the most pleasant shivers up and down her spine. Elia bent her head, brushed her nose against Rhaegar’s own before pressing her lips ever so gently against his mouth.

 

He broke then, clasping her body tightly to his and devouring her mouth almost violently. One arm banded across her back, held her close, while the other used its hand to rip away whatever little remained of her shift. He kissed her hard, and for a bit too long, and she pulled her mouth just slightly to the side to draw in air. His lips seemed too hungry to stop, peppering kisses along her jaw, sucking and biting at the flesh of her neck. She shivered when she felt his teeth against her pulse point, put her hands against his shoulders and neither pushed nor pulled. It was a false semblance of calm, of control, that lasted only until the prince drew her breast into his mouth.

 

She moaned this time, a sound so wanton and heavy that Rhaegar stiffened and released a sigh around a mouthful of her nipple. He began to suckle on her breast again, at first gently and then harder and harder. Her other breast he palmed with his free hand, his fingers twisting and pulling until the nipple hardened to a dark, tight nub. His mouth then moved to her other breast and she dared a look down, saw her skin glistening a wet red from his ministrations. She moaned again, threw her head back and gasped her pleasure to the ceiling.

 

He moved under her, pressing that hardened length up against her and she had to bite her tongue to keep from whimpering. Her hands fisted in his undershirt, though she dared not to rip or pull as he had done with her clothes. But the pressure of her hands against his chest seemed to be enough to remind him that of the two, he still had the misfortune of being clothed.

 

He flipped her over, so quickly that she lost her breath, and reared up off the bed to remove his shirt, revealing the muscles of his chest. He removed his smallclothes in the same haste, soon as naked as she was, and then climbed back onto the bed, back onto her, and she gasped when he resumed his work with her breasts.

 

She knew what was to come, but was still unprepared for the press of his fingers against her folds. Elia held her breath as Rhaegar pushed one of his fingers into her entrance, curving the digit just slightly. The motion was enough to nearly drive her out of her mind and her hips bucked under his body. She felt his chuckle against her breasts before he moved up to kiss her again, just as fiercely as before. His finger began to move in and out of her, despite her attempts to squeeze her legs together and keep it in one spot. Another finger soon accompanied the first and she felt Rhaegar’s thumb brush up against her nub, that sweet, secret part of herself, and she could not open her legs wider for him.

 

It did not take long for her to come undone, her pleasure and climax presented in only the slightest of moans and gasps. She could still hear the mob outside their doors, retained enough sense not to scream her release for their ears to hear. Rhaegar panted and breathed heavily above her, mouth busy with her neck, with her mouth, with her breasts, and she was still too high to guess his intent before she felt that hard length pushing against her entrance.

 

Rhaegar tore through her maidenhood in a sudden, forceful thrust even as apologies rained down from his lips. She swallowed a sound, not sure if it was a shriek, a moan, or a grunt, and forced herself to breathe through her nose, to settle the pain that burned through her abdomen. Rhaegar kissed her hard, one last time, before rising to rest on his knees. He grabbed at her legs, pulled her up until they were face to face, nestled her onto his lap, and took hold of her waist.

 

“Breathe, my love,” and she found herself more flustered by this endearment than by the position he had placed her. He began to rock back and forth, his hands guiding her hips on the way she should move. Her hands found their way to his shoulders, using the leverage there to lift her body just a bit off and above him. He growled his approval of this act, rising up to thrust just a bit deeper into her. It still hurt, and she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ride out the sensation even as the pain faded bit by bit.

 

Soon, it began to feel good. The muscles in her back loosened and her eyelids started to flutter open. Rhaegar kissed her then, kissed her breath right out of her lungs before pulling back until the tip of him remained inside, and then pushed right back in, buried to the hilt. She gasped into his mouth, a shock of pleasure rippling through her at this action. He repeated the motion, several times, and she abandoned his mouth to bury her face into the hollow of his neck, moaning endlessly into his white, white skin.

 

He was nearing the end, and his control disappeared. She found herself on her back once more, Rhaegar throwing one her legs over his shoulder while winding the other around his waist. He grunted, loudly, and slammed into her harder than ever before. She writhed, moaned, and arched up to meet him, forgetting even the bawdy shouts from outside the doors for just a second. She heard his name tumble from her lips, soft, breathless, and almost pleading, and then felt his thumb back at work, in tandem with his cock, pulling her apart at the seams and making the world explode behind her eyelids.

 

He followed not even a minute later, his release shouted gruffly, echoing off the walls of his chamber and mingling with the howls of approval from outside. He collapsed on top of her, his head on her chest and his soft cock twitching slightly inside her. She tilted her head back, tried to calm her breathing, when she felt something soft and silky land in a cool wave across her chest.

 

Elia opened her eyes and saw Rhaegar watching her intently as he dropped petal after petal across her naked body. His hand empty, he rested it on her chest, his thumb sliding lovingly across the underside of her breast. “My wife,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

 

She held her breath as he leant forward, pressed a kiss to each breast and then one on her lips before pulling away from her. Soon he had her covered in furs, strong arms bringing her body flush against his once more. The shouts from the corridor continued, but he ignored them all as he placed his cheek against the soft of her hair and resolutely shut his eyes.

 

She caught herself smiling into his chest before she also snapped her eyes closed and chased after sleep.

 

He would have her once more during the night, his hands feverish and his cock deeper and deeper inside her with every thrust. Just after dawn, he turned her over onto her hands and knees and had her that way, his fingers gripping her hips tight enough to bruise as he pulled her back to meet every one of his thrusts. Her body burned for the rest of the day and it was a fight to keep her weariness to herself.

 

Aerys, over lunch, laughed and asked how Rhaegar liked his new Dornish prize. “After all, it is said you can ride a Dornish mare for two days before she tires.”

 

Elia looked to her mother then, though it was Rhaegar who gripped her hand tightly under the table. Elia looked straight at the Lady of Dorne and for the first time saw something like doubt on her face.

 

The day after that, they all departed for the north, the east, the west, and the south, leaving Elia alone to contend with dragons, young, old, mad, and all.

 

~0~


	4. Part Four

~280 A.L.~

 

Viserys came into her rooms just after breakfast, avoiding the curtsies and adoring coos of the many ladies present. Elia smiled encouragingly at her little good-brother, but inside her stomach was turning sickeningly. And the fault lay not with the babe still forming in her womb, but with the hooded eyes of the young prince.

 

“Viserys, my love,” Elia quickly handed off her sewing to Ashara beside her and opened her arms for the boy. He climbed onto her lap and settled quietly in the cradle of her arms, little silver-topped head resting against her shoulder. “Did you break your fast, my darling?”

 

He nodded, face pressed tight against the hollow of her throat. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper, words meant only for her to hear. “Mother did it again; I told her not to, but she did it anyway.”

 

His small hands clutched at the fabric of her bodice, shame turning his face deeper and deeper into her neck so that others may not see the unshed tears there. He raised his face just enough for his lips to hover just below her ear. “She woke the dragon.”

 

Elia suppressed a sigh, smiled benignly at the overly curious ladies trying to hear what the little prince was whispering to his good-sister. She squeezed Viserys quickly, so brief that many would have missed it. She helped him off her lap, rising to her feet with an apologetic look on her face. “Excuse me, dear ladies. But our beloved princeling is in need of some sweets.”

 

The gathered ladies tittered and preened, even as Viserys glared disdainfully at them. Elia led him out, Ashara following on her heels without having to be told. Waiting at the door of her rooms stood before Ser Barristan and Ser Oswell, and they too fell in line as she carefully guided Viserys down the corridor. She stopped just before taking the turn that would lead them to the queen’s apartments. Now she looked to Ashara and the young lady stepped forward with a pleasant smile on her face.

 

“My prince, would you like to accompany me to the kitchens?” Ashara offered her hand to the prince, knowing her part very well. “We shall have to find you very many sweets to fill your royal belly.”

 

Viserys frowned a little less severely at this, a true sign that he liked Ashara better than most people. He did look to Elia first, for assurance, and she smiled encouragingly at him. Once Ashara had departed with the prince, Ser Oswell on their heels, Elia dropped her smile and exchanged a look with Ser Barristan. She resumed her march without a word.

 

Ser Jonothor Darry stood outside the queen’s door, stoic and steadfast as any of his brethren. She glanced over him, knowing the man would not meet her eyes. None of the brave knights could seem to accomplish that task on days such as these. It was times like these when she missed Dorne the most, missed her fierce mother and her brothers. No one in Dorne would have abided this nonsense.

 

“Go get the maester,” she ordered shortly, not really caring which knight stayed and which left. She pushed open the door and marched past both men, their pristine white cloaks fluttering uselessly behind them. There were two maids, white-faced with dried tear tracks on their cheeks, standing within, just outside the entrance to the queen’s private chambers. Both flinched at her presence, gazes glued to their feet as she swept past them. Elia wasted not a second for either of them.

 

Alerie Hightower was the only lady present by the queen’s bedside. The girl was young, but barely blinked at the sudden appearance of her princess. The girl dipped her head in acknowledgement and then immediately went back to wiping Queen Rhaella’s face clean of sweat and dried blood. “His Grace left just an hour past.”

 

Elia moved to stand at her good-mother’s bedside, eyes taking in the bloody lip, the swelling around the left eye, and the angry bruise forming on the right cheek. Rhaella watched her calmly, with those violet-blue eyes that Elia sees almost everywhere these days.

 

“One day, he might kill you.”

 

Rhaella averted her eyes, waving Alerie away impatiently. “He is my husband; I’m told it is his right.”

 

_He was your brother first; both Oberyn and Doran would cut off their own hands before ever striking me,_ Elia took a seat at the end of the bed, hands folded calmly in her lap. “Viserys came crying to my rooms, again. How much longer will this go on, Your Grace?”

 

Rhaella pressed her lips together, a frown crossing her features. “They have gone on long before your arrival, princess. How do you propose to stop it? He is the king, there is no one to tell him what to do.”

 

Elia bit her tongue to hold back all she wanted to say. The king’s madness left them all feeling powerless. Rhaegar himself did not stop his father, bound as he was to obey the laws of his kingdom. _A son is a son, but a king is a king. Isn’t that the nonsense they all spout here? Lackluster words that cover not nearly as much shame as they were designed to cover._

 

It was better, though, when the prince was here. Certainly, it was better for the queen herself. Aerys laid not a finger on his wife when his son was in the Keep, the king’s insanity not deep enough to try so completely the love of a son for his mother. But the impulses were becoming harder and harder to control, as any man could see. It was the burnings, that sickening display of wildfire and the madness of a once just king, that fuelled the change. It excited her good-father to see a man burn, to watch him flail in the flames, see his anguished screams of pain, to smell the scent of burnt hair and skin filling up the air of his hall.

 

“A delicate situation, complex indeed,” Elia flicked her eyes over to Alerie, assessing the girl quietly, perhaps coldly. It pleased Elia to see Alerie straighten her back, to look back at her princess a bit too boldly for a mere lady-in-waiting. Elia hid a smile, forced her lips to stay pressed together instead of curving upwards as they so obviously wished to do. She had become too accustomed to useless women these days, of highborn, well-dressed ladies who pay more mind to gossip than anything that might actually be of importance.

 

“I fear I am myself too young and too naïve to understand the complexities of this complexing situation,” Elia turned back to her good-mother and did not smile, though the queen obviously fought not to do so herself. “However, my lady mother is both wise and experienced with the most complex of complexities. Viserys could accompany you, as the poor boy’s never had the joy of visiting Dorne himself, and certainly no one would think twice of him going with you as you visit an old and dear friend. I shall at once write to mother and Rh-“

 

The queen’s hand on her shoulder stopped the rush of words from Elia’s mouth. “He does not look to you,” Rhaella told her evenly, so quiet and so severe. “You are almost of no concern to him. You have the heir in your belly and Rhaegar’s love about your shoulders. The people adore you, but only in the way they adore beautiful women who are dutiful wives to handsome lords. If you stand out, in any other way, he will notice, and you do not want him to notice you, Elia. He’s _mad_.”

 

Elia looked at the hand on her shoulder, found it easier to stare at then those weary violet eyes. She had often felt encumbered by her own weakness during her youth in Dorne. The shock of her marriage announcement had left her feeling a bit more powerless than usual. But never, in all her years, could Elia remember feeling as trapped and as useless as she did now.

 

It was not a feeling she liked. Something down within her, something wild, angry, _Dornish_ , rattled unhappily, screaming Nymeria’s name at the top of its lungs. Her own hands, trembling at her sides, clenched tightly into fists, bone white knuckles set against the darker tint of her skin.

 

Rhaella took it all in, with one glance, and her hand tightened slightly around Elia’s thin shoulder. “Rhaegar will be home in a fortnight. Be happy, child, for your husband will never strike you. And when he is king, no one shall strike me as well.”

 

Elia thought it odd and uncomfortable that they all believed themselves to be loyal subjects, bound by the king’s laws, when all they did, all anyone ever did, was wait for Aerys to die. But the king, for all his insanity, for all his scabs and suspicions-the king was still strong, healthy.

 

_He could burn down half the kingdom, one home at a time, before the Stranger came to claim him,_ and she did not know if this made her bitter or scared, but she did know that it did not make the situation at present any easier to stomach.

 

“I will write Rhaegar,” she said, the words like ash in her mouth. “And I will ask him to come home soon. I fear, Your Grace, that I miss my husband too much when he is gone.”

 

The queen’s hand moved from Elia’s shoulder to her back, a light touch before dropping away all together. “Then you are a most lucky woman, dear daughter.”

 

The maester arrived and Elia stepped back out of the queen’s room. As Ser Barristan followed her back to her own apartments, Elia wished, not for the first time, that she was back in Dorne, cajoling some mirth out of Doran or chastising Oberyn for never listening to anyone.

 

Elia had been a princess all her life, but only once the Targaryen mantle was laid upon her shoulders did she find the station perhaps too hard for her to handle.

 

~0~

 

She did write her husband, away in the Stormlands with his friend Ser Jon Connington and her own uncle among others. Rhaegar had been gone a month at this time, a month in which her belly swelled just a bit and the king ran rampant just a bit. She can hardly remember the business that had pulled the prince away from her, something about trade and squabbles and the recent passing of the Storm Lord, Steffon Baratheon.

 

Rhaegar sent a reply, as quickly as was possible. Elia found her husband was good in that respect, that he never kept her waiting for long. Rhaegar claimed that he would always come when she called, as long as she paid him for his fealty in sweet smiles and soft sighs. She jested, often, that his price was far too cheap for a prince of the realm, and he would always reply that she merely undervalued the graces of his lady wife.

 

It was in those moments Elia felt that she loved her husband. All dutiful wives loved their husbands, bended to his will and smiled all the while. Elia did all that, and yet sometimes she felt that she might love him more than just what was expected of her. It was a frightening notion, though she knew people fell in love and then minstrels wrote songs about it and young girls sighed dreamily when hearing of it. But she had never thought of such love for herself, because it seemed like such a strange and cumbersome thing. Elia would prefer not to love someone so much that she could not bear to be apart from him. Perhaps it was her Rhoynish blood, that bit of Nymeria in her, which quailed at the idea-Elia didn’t know for sure. But she knew on some days it unsettled her, because for all her preparation for marriage and her wifely duties, Elia never received instruction on how to deal with something as trivial and monumental as love.

 

It was Rhaegar’s fault, she decided not too long after their wedding. Her husband had the annoying habit of being overly sweet and yet unyieldingly sincere, two traits most Dornishmen did not possess (and those who did would certainly never boast of them). He seemed utterly convinced that she should love him, as he loved her too, and did many things that made it impossible for her to regard their marriage with a mere comfortable affection.

 

His letter, never too long, never too saccharine, promised her a swift return, almost a week sooner than he had previously intended. That alone made her heart swell, for she knew many wives received rebukes instead of concessions and made her wish that he was near enough to kiss, she was so grateful. She shared the news with the queen and together they planned a lavish dinner to welcome back the prince, plans that had the added benefit of keeping Rhaella legitimately preoccupied and out of her rooms should the king come calling.

 

(There was nothing she could do of the nights, other than to lie awake in her bed and pray to the gods that Aerys had been too long in his cups that night and now slept soundly without the urge to trouble his wife.)

 

So intricate were their plans, and so overjoyed they were with his impending arrival, that Elia was quite honestly stunned to emerge from her daily prayers at the Great Sept to see the commotion that preceded the wave of black and red banners steadily coming her way, a full week before his promised return. She found herself almost mute with shock, hand going forward to lightly touch the back of Ashara’s hand, asking silently for confirmation of what she was seeing.

 

“It is the prince,” Ashara whispered, and her voice was as breathless as Elia felt. Elia felt her ladies gather behind her as Ser Barristan stepped forward, kneeling as his crowned prince dismounted from his horse.

 

Elia stayed at the top of the steps, directly across Baelor’s statue and that the children that seemed to ever be climbing it. Rhaegar strode towards her and she regained enough of her wits to smile before dropping into a curtsy before her husband.

 

“My lor-“

 

He caught her by the waist, hands tugging her forward to his chest in a display that was downright inappropriate for such a public forum. And he kissed her right there, on the steps of the Great Sept, and it was not a light, sweet kiss that would cause the public to cheer and her ladies to sigh. It was a deep kiss, one of barely contained passion, and it sent the crowd of commoners to hooting and her ladies to tittering and his men to shouting and whistling.

 

She pulled back from him, eyes wide and lungs breathless in a way that only Rhaegar seemed to make her feel. The look in his eyes was more than just love, it was desire and longing and she felt her cheeks redden in a way that would make Oberyn fall over with laughter. But what could she do? Rhaegar, soft-spoken, private Rhaegar, was kissing the breath from her lungs where all of King’s Landing could see.

 

“Have you come to scandalize the High Septon so thoroughly that I am to be banned from the sept altogether?” she asked, hands braced against his chest as he did not seem inclined to release her from his embrace. “Where will I pray, when all the world will think me a sinful, lusty woman bereft of shame?”

 

Rhaegar merely smiled. “You shall pray wherever your heart desires, and I will hold the world at sword point until they apologize for ever daring to think such things of my beautiful, pious, blushing bride.”

 

Elia felt her heart twist again, squeaking a noise entirely unbecoming a princess of the realm when he pulled her back in for another kiss. She felt disoriented and overexposed, wondering what would become of the world when a Dornishwoman must remind her husband of the laws of propriety. Rhaegar was usually the contained one, smiling politely as the crowds madly cheered for him. But there were times, like this one, like the incident at the Storm’s End tourney, when Rhaegar outright defied the perception many had of him.

 

“Stop,” she demanded, voice hardly more than a gasp of air. Her lips tingled, she could feel them bruising as she spoke, and it made her feel warmer than she should at the doors of a sept. She may be a Martell, but she was not Oberyn Martell, and septs were perhaps not a place where she would want her husband to ravish her.

 

_Well, at least not when there are so many eyes upon us. The Dornish are loud and boastful, yet not known for such scandalous exhibitions_. Even Oberyn, who would count a day as wasted if he had not lain with at least one woman, had enough sense to lay with his paramours in private.

 

Rhaegar looked at her, entirely too overjoyed by her reactions. “I thought you wanted me to come home early,” he reminded her.

 

“Aye, and you said you would return the following week. You’ve ruined days of planning, I’ll have you know.”

 

“So, you are cross with me for hastening to your side?”

 

And to that she smiled. “I am neither cross nor in any state of excessive bliss. Though, I must admit, you do make a daring entrance, my husband,” she leaned closer to him, lips to his ears, “and I shall make my appreciation known when we are somewhere not so public, if the prince feels he could stand to wait that long.”

 

His eyes were burning when she pulled back to see them, making her equal parts proud and nervous. Targaryens, it seemed, were all prone to excess in some form. With the king, that excess took a hideous form, one that made her stomach churn and her chest ache with worry. With Viserys, it came in his obsession with dragons, whether it was hours spent gazing upon the skulls in the throne room or speaking of nothing but Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar for days on end.

 

Rhaegar’s love was his own excess, and though Elia enjoyed the nights she spent in the arms of her husband, she could not deny that he exhausted her at times. Rhaegar, so calm and reserved before others, had an appetite for her body that Elia often struggled to fulfill. He was never forceful, never cruel or violent-but his lust put her brother’s to shame, and Rhaegar had not three or four outlets for his passion. It was a sign of how much he loved her, she knew that without having to be told, and of how much he desired her. She wanted to melt every time she saw the heat glowing in his eyes when he came to her chambers. In the months following their wedding, Rhaegar had come to her nightly, and there was not a spot in her chambers where he had not taken her.

 

It was caused whispers, and not kind ones in every case. _No wonder her belly swells so quickly,_ they would whisper when they think she had not the ears to hear them, _the prince goes not one night without visiting her. Who will stop him, when she is too big with child to indulge his lusts? It isn’t right, it isn’t proper-he should know better than to risk the babe to feed his needs. This is not our prince-perhaps the Dornish woman has cast some spell upon him to make him forget himself._

 

Elia pulled back from him then, ears ringing with the mutterings that will no doubt be short in coming. “It’s a ploy I think,” she murmured teasingly to her ladies. “He thinks this will make me forget that he had left me on my own for so long. But we Dornish have long memories, do we not Ashara?”

 

“Frightfully long, my lady,” Ashara agreed, a sweet a smile on her face as the one Elia could produce. “And yet, he is a prince. He could merely order us to neglect to remember.”

 

“And we would comply, as we are but the most loyal and devout of all subjects,” Elia dared a glance at her husband, thrilled at the amused grin stretched across his face. “But he would not, for my prince is far too kind and far too sweet for such tyrannical behaviour.”

 

The crowd was still cheering madly, and the mounted men were now coughing to conceal their laughter. Elia dipped down, finishing her curtsy properly this time, and received a bow in return. “Welcome home, my lord.”

 

Rhaegar reached for her, though this time to softly stroke her cheek before moving his hand to settle upon the tiny bulge in her belly. If the crowd was loud before, it was deafening now. He kissed her again, almost chastely upon the cheek and then offered her his arm. “I am most pleased to be home, my lady.”

 

Sometimes, when he was like this with her and she was like this with him, Elia could almost forget all her worries.

 

But then the Red Keep came into sight and all Elia could see was green flames, charred flesh, and angry bruises colouring pale white skin.

 

Her mother had given her Rhaegar, and perhaps for that she was grateful. But the Lady had also given her King’s Landing, a mad king, and a world so far from Dorne that she felt inconsequential though they told her she was in the center of it all.

 

~0~

 

Elia’s daughter was born in a flood of life and death.

 

“Balerion was the Black Dread . . .” Viserys emphasized this point by jabbing at something on the page in front of him whilst Arianne nodded knowingly. The young prince was only two years older than the Dornish princess, though he acted as if those two years were a decade apiece. And little Arianne, Doran’s impossibly perfect little girl-child, doted upon the silver-haired boy as if he were responsible for hanging the sun and the moon in the sky. It was a high point in her days to watch the two sprawl across the floor of her apartments, unmindful of their royal and noble dignity, and act as children were meant to act.

 

“She’s hardly so agreeable at home,” Mellario muttered from her spot by the window, her sewing blatantly disregarded in a heap at her feet. “I’ve half a mind to leave her here.”

 

“Doran would walk the entire way back to reclaim her,” Elia laughed, though it was short. What followed next was a sharp gasp and painful twist in her swollen belly. The idle chitchat of the surrounding ladies fell away suddenly, leaving only the childish tones of the prince and princess to fill the silence.

 

Elia forced a laugh and tried to pick up her sewing once more. “Just a little twinge,” she assured everyone, though she felt it again, minutes later. Elia touched her stomach gingerly, fingers brushing over her gown and touching against something damp. She looked down at the blooming wet stain on her gown incredulously. 

 

Mellario rose to her feet, a look of glee on her face. “Finally! Lady Ashara, call the midwives.”

 

“It’s too soon,” Elia protested, even as the pain returned, harder than before. The children had caught on by this point, Viserys running to Elia’s side and touching a hand to her right cheek.

 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, as serious as the grave.

 

“She is fine, sweet princeling,” Mellario answered, moving swiftly to push the boy gently aside before looking pointedly at Ashara again. “Lady Ashara, please take the children with you. I believe Ser Barristan should escort them elsewhere to play. Perhaps the dragon skulls, my prince? Arianne has talked so much of them since we’ve arrived.”

 

Arianne came forward, put her little hand into Viserys’s little hand and tugged him away. “We have to go,” she told the prince, blunt and authoritative as usual. “The baby is coming,” she pulled the boy towards the door, stopped suddenly, and gave him a smile. “You’ll be an uncle.”

 

“And you a cousin,” he added, content to share some of the glory with his new friend.

 

Arianne shrugged, an almost perfect imitation of her father’s movements. “Uncle is better than cousin, but dragons are better than babies. Aunt Elia is going to a very big mess.”

 

Elia laughed at that, her last laugh for the rest of the day, as the pain came searing back with vengeance. The few remaining ladies helped her towards her private chambers while 

Mellario barked orders like a military commander. “If you are lucky, dear sister, the child will come fast.”

 

Elia was not so lucky.

 

She did not know too much of what happened beyond the edges of her bed. Mellario remained present, slipping a hand into Elia’s own when the pain became too much and she had to scream her agony for all to hear. The queen came as well, took her place at Elia’s other side, hands gripping Elia’s own tightly. Elia felt fingers brushing across her forehead, heard soft sounds of encouragement from all sides, but it was not quite what she wanted, what she needed.

 

But the Lady of Dorne was not here.

 

Illness had kept the Lady back, when Elia had been certain that her mother would hasten to bear witness to the fruits of her labour-her own daughter, birthing the heir of the kingdom. Elia thought an army of savage aurochs would not keep her mother away from her now.

 

But her sons would not let her go. “She wears herself thin as it is,” Doran had explained shortly after his arrival in King’s Landing with his wife and daughter at hand. “She hardly ever rests as much as the maester tells her she needs to. It’s weakened her, a bit, and I might have forced Oberyn to stay behind with her in Sunspear while I came to see the sister I haven’t seen in over two years. He snarled the usual amount, and then consented. Apparently he took it upon himself to remember that I loved you too.”

 

She had laughed while she hugged him, somber and cautious Doran who she loved as dearly as Oberyn. “I must admit, it sounds out of character for him.”

 

Doran had returned her smile with a small one of his own, a sign of endless amusement on Doran’s part. “Mother says she will take the opportunity to teach him something of diplomacy. What that proposes to be, I cannot be certain. I just hope they do not strangle each other in my absence.”

 

Doran’s presence had been a blessing, in the end. Her elder brother, less brash and obvious than Oberyn, got on much better with Rhaegar and the others at court. He was quiet, unassuming, and handled even the occasional outburst from the king with polite grace. Mellario was the one to cause some ripples, with her bold tongue and high, free laughter. Elia delighted in every bewildered look and disdainful noise Mellario earned; she had not had this much fun amongst her ladies the entire time she had been married.

 

Even now, as the midwives rushed to and fro and the queen murmured sweet encouragements in her ear, Mellario made jokes at her expense, describing her own labor of Arianne in vivid detail, and admonished Elia for engaging in pointless theatrics. “It can’t hurt that bad, dear sister.”

 

She had not enough air in her lungs to spare for laughter. Elia gasped and shook her head, pain colliding with mirth to render her completely incomprehensible.

 

The queen could only stare at Mellario. “How did Doran marry you?”, and it was not an unkind question, but one of genuine curiosity. That too was normal, whenever people met the pair, as Mellario was as different from Doran as night was from day.

 

“I have always believed the better question to be why I ever marry him.”

 

Mellario began to lose some of her humor later on, hours and hours later and the babe had not yet shown. She pushed back the hair off Elia’s sweaty forehead and tried to smile, but Elia could see the concern plainly. The babe was taking too long in coming, and the blood kept staining the sheets an obscene scarlet.

 

The queen remained at Elia’s side, not leaving once for food or rest. She talked to Elia calmly, and when the pain became too much, she would sing some of the Dornish lullabies that the Lady had taught her when they had been young at court together. Elia asked often for Rhaegar, and was always assured that he was just outside the door, waiting anxiously on both his wife and child.

 

“Men have no place in the birthing room,” Mellario clucked her tongue and shared a quick smile with the queen. “Give them a lance and horse, and they’re bloodthirsty savages. Ask them to watch while you push their spawn out of your body, and they’re hysterical old women, of no use to anyone.”

 

But it was Elia who was hysterical, screaming the full hour preceding her daughter’s eventual arrival into the world. She could feel her body ripping and breaking in the minutes before the birth, and the relief at the its end was short lived. She remembered briefly hearing the sounds of a babe’s cries and Mellario’s claims of “it’s a girl! Another sweet princess!” before Elia shut her eyes and fell into oblivion.

 

Waking was difficult, and it did not take the first few times she attempted it. Elia’s eyes would flutter open, and some sort of consciousness would come back to her, but she could not decipher the sounds and voices around her. She could feel the push and pull of hands on her body, cold fingers, warm hands, and even the dampness of wet clothes across her forehead. She felt hot, impossibly hot, hotter than she ever remembered feeling. The sands of Dorne in the middle of glorious summer day were never as hot as this, and Elia thought perhaps she would just burn away in the aftermath of the birth.

 

It was perhaps on the fourth or fifth time that Elia tried to wake, she felt better, though not well. She no longer burned all over, but her body was worn, battered, and sore. When she moved her arms, trying to shift her body into a more comfortable position, the pain flared hot and fast. She gasped, loudly, and suddenly there was a swarm of women all around her.

 

“Princess!” Ashara pushed her way to the front and grabbed hold of Elia’s hand, pressing it to her heart. Elia stared at confusion at the unshed tears obviously swimming in Ashara’s eyes. “We thought-we feared-the maester! Call the maester!”

 

More people came and went. Elia managed to force herself to sit up, back resting against a mountain of pillows even as the maester admonished her for the effort. Her arms were shaking with the strain of having the hold up her body for even a small fraction of time, and that sent worry thrumming through her brain. Elia was no stranger to bouts of weakness and ill-health, but she was never been so close to being invalid.

 

“The child,” she rasped, waving away the maester’s potions and concoctions. “Where is my child?”

 

Ashara flew away at this request, and it was still too long before Elia had any answers. It was Rhaegar himself who came, a small bundle in his arms. She watched quietly, near tears, as he ordered everyone from the room, eyeing those who took too long to obey. The door closed behind the maester and then he was beside her, on the bed, and their daughter held out before her.

 

“She is you, love,” he told her, voice breathless and full of wonder. “Every little bit is you, though the gods granted me a bit of vanity and coloured her eyes the same as my own. But look, how beautiful she is.”

 

Beautiful, and small, but with rosy cheeks and pink lips and such a healthy glow of serenity about her as she slept. Elia let out a garbled breath, tears running down her cheeks at last as she ran a trembling finger down the side of her daughter’s face. Rhaegar kissed her on the forehead then, but she had eyes only for the babe. Elia did not remember ever feeling such love and gratitude ever before in her life.

 

She had many visitors in the days that followed, everyone watching her shrewishly, waiting for her to get up onto her own feet. She would oblige them, but she hadn’t the strength. Most days she felt utterly lifeless, and perhaps this would have sunk another woman into a melancholic state, but Elia was no stranger to feeling weak and trapped in her own skin. Rhaegar kept her company, as did Mellario and Doran. Viserys never went a day without one visit, and Arianne could think of nothing better than to dog his heels. The queen came often and the king, blissfully, came less than often.

 

“You need an heir,” Aerys spat on one of his more heated visits, ignoring Elia completely in favour of scolding his son. “Get her out of her bed and back into your own-you need a son! I didn’t bring her here to birth Viserys a wife.”

 

“Did he mean it?” she asked the queen later, both seated upon Elia’s bed, watching baby Rhaenys sleep soundly upon the furs. “Will he make her marry Viserys if I don’t have a son?”

 

Queen Rhaella did not look at her, merely shrugged and placed a hand on Rhaenys’s dark locks. “If you have a son, he will make her marry that son.”

 

The queen pulled back and looked Elia squarely in the eye. “We are Targaryens, all of us. Do not forget it, ever. No matter what you want for them, no matter what they want for themselves, they cannot escape their fate.”

 

Elia set her mouth in a thin line. “Aerys will not live forever.”

 

“But the dragon must have three heads,” the queen shrugged her shoulders, a pretence at lightheartedness. “And those heads must be as pure Targaryen as they can be. I am sorry, Elia. Rhaegar, for however much you love him, is still a dragon. He might well be a better king than his father, but he will never be entirely different. This is in our blood; this is what it means to hold the Iron Throne.”

 

She had a thought to speak of this to Rhaegar, to let him know right from the start that she, Princess Elia of Dorne, would never let this happen.

 

But Rhaegar visited her that day not alone; Doran followed her husband into her chambers and she could feel the dread before she knew the truth of it.

 

The Lady of Dorne was dead.

 

“I am sorry, my love,” Rhaegar told her, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

 

Elia took her hand back, and for once in her life, had not a single thing to say.

 

~0~


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains adult content.

~281 A.L.~

 

The end did not start with the tourney, with the wreath of winter roses placed upon the wrong lap. It started days before, in the afternoon, and Elia saw a change but did not know then what it meant.

 

Harrenhal was a monstrosity, but it was an amusing monstrosity. The twisted, blackened remnants of one man’s defiance of the dragons chilled Elia to the bone, and yet excited her endlessly. If there was a place that were to be haunted, it should be Harrenhal. It was the stuff of nightmares, jagged, coiled, and deformed.

 

“And after all that nonsense with the Kingswood Brotherhood,” Elia turned to share a small smile with Ashara as Rhea Hightower went on and on at length about things she knew very little about. Elia glanced quickly to Alerie, to see how the young woman handled her mother’s candor and was not surprised to see a slightly resigned pinch to the girl’s features. “Well, it was utterly reprehensible how people were glorifying that lot. Do you know there are bards up and down the westerlands writing songs in honour of the Smiling Knight?”

 

“Let them write what they will, for the ending of the Smiling Knight is all the same,” Ashara paused to beam proudly in the direction of her brother, standing vigilant at the entrance to Elia’s borrowed rooms. “A valiant knight slayed him, after wresting the love of the smallfolk back from him first.”

 

Several ladies tittered and fawned mindlessly at that, and perhaps Elia jabbed her at needlework with more than the usual force, but she could not help herself. Ten years had not numbed the slap of the insult any.

 

“Yes, your brother was quite valiant, was he not?” Rhea Hightower leant over and openly stared at the Sword in the Morning whilst her daughter lowered her eyes. “How lucky you are, my princess, to be surrounded at all times by such gallant, brave, and clever knights.”

 

“Ser Arthur’s ability to make sweet promises is as strong as ever,” Elia offered offhand, not missing the stiffening of Ser Arthur’s spine and relishing in the triumphant feeling it gave her. “He has been such a boon for the kingdom, for my dear husband and good-father, a pillar of strength, really. House Dayne honours us with the finest of knights.”

 

Ashara coughed and seemed conflicted. Elia felt sorry for her friend, always caught in the middle of this, and yet never so bold as to interfere. Oberyn had not the grace and tact of Ashara Dayne.

 

Elia, in a moment of kindness that she did not usually feel when Ser Arthur was a point of discussion, turned away from the prattle of the other highborn ladies and looked to where Rhaenys sat upon her grandmother’s lap. She smiled faintly as her daughter waved a wooden dragon about in her hands and described at length something or the other in her own mix of common tongue and babe’s language. Rhaella smiled and nodded, encouraging Rhaenys to continue, smiling proudly whenever a lady paid the princess a compliment.

 

Rhaenys, the heir to the kingdom. And yet nothing more than Viserys’s future wife, if Aerys was to be believed. Elia felt her smile droop at the thought of her good-father. His arrival the day before had not been pleasant. Rhaegar had long since become accustomed to his father’s jibes and commands, but that day Aerys had come with accusations of outright treason.

 

Aerys feared for his crown, from every which turn. Tywin Lannister’s competence, Rhaegar’s popularity-everything seemed threatening to the king. The king’s suspicions soured his already delicate temperament, and Rhaegar had quickly turned from son to rival. The change had upset the prince, driving the usually serious Rhaegar to longer bouts of melancholy than Elia was used to witnessing. The prince’s visits to Summerhall had increased in recent months, and she did not know what he did there, what visions or ghosts he held court with, but he always returned with the new words to another tragic song upon his lips.

 

They were perhaps more distant than they had ever been in their short marriage. The weakness Elia battled in the aftermath of Rhaenys’s death and the heartbreak of her mother’s death had delayed her return to court longer than what most had expected. It took months for her to gather the strength to roam about her rooms as she had once before, and months after that to be able to visit other parts of the castle of her own accord.

 

This lingering frailty had kept Rhaegar from her bed; the prince had understood the maester’s dire warnings on what a new pregnancy would do to her at this stage, and he had kept himself away as much as he could. Only recently had they began to share their marriage bed as before, though Rhaegar held himself back more now than he did before. Perhaps the bloody birth had frightened him; there were days where he was hesitant to hold her too tightly, hands barely skimming over her skin while they both burned with frustration.

 

Even now, during their stay at Harrenhal, Elia had seen very little of her husband. He was usually about with her uncle, or with Ser Jon and Ser Oswell. She prayed that he found some time for entertainment, for he had been too somber in the past months for her liking. She wanted a bit of her old prince back, the quiet one who yet kept a slight spark in his eyes.

 

A commotion drew the attention of the women. Elia turned with the others as they regarded the door, from beyond which they could distinctly hear the sounds of stomping feet and raised voices. Ser Arthur put his hand upon Dawn’s hilt and stepped out to see what the fuss was about. When the door opened again, Elia expected to see the knight return with some sort of an explanation.

 

She did not expect to see her husband step into the room, his pale skin flushed and his violet eyes looking just a tad bit wild.

 

Rhaegar was not in the habit of looking wild. She immediately rose to her feet, felt rather than saw the queen do the same from behind her. Rhaegar’s eyes scanned the crowd of curious women and stopped when they met hers. Elia stifled a gasp at the heat she saw there, felt her fingers twitch slightly as she wondered exactly what was happening to her husband.

 

“I am sorry to interrupt, ladies,” Rhaegar stepped further into the room, Ser Arthur and Ser Oswell on his heels. The prince inclined his head at his mother and tried his best to put on a gentle smile. “I fear I have come to steal my wife from you. I have need of her for the moment.”

 

Elia smiled prettily even as all eyes swung her way. Obvious curiosity burned in the eyes of many a woman, Rhea Hightower most obviously. Elia set down her sewing and in doing so exchanged a concerned look with the queen. Rhaella nodded her head ever so slightly, hitching Rhaenys a bit higher on her hip. Elia murmured her apologies to the room and moved forward to give Rhaegar her hand. The prince kissed her hand and bowed once to the assembled ladies before escorting her from the room.

 

“What is the matter, love?” she whispered once they had stepped into the corridor. She feared some more trouble with Aerys, or perhaps with the lions. Tensions between the king and the Hand were at an almost ridiculous high point, putting the turmoil of her marriage announcement almost to shame in its ferocity.

 

Rhaegar merely shook his head. He turned her left and guided her forwards as Ser Oswell stepped in behind them and Ser Arthur went back to his post inside the room. She looked for her uncle, but could not spot him. Another look at Rhaegar showed the prince had not yet entirely calmed, his eyes still wild and so utterly unlike him.

 

“Has someone hatched a dragon?” she asked, attempting for humour. Rhaegar’s lips twitched, but he did not slow down, nor did he answer her. Elia swallowed a tremor of nerves and pushed onwards. “Very well, not dragons. Perhaps a grumpkin sighting? A shadowcat far beyond the reaches of the Wall? Oberyn behaving himself in the company of others?”

 

The last one made him laugh, a snort more than a laugh, and then suddenly they stopped. Ser Jonothor stood silently in front of a closed door that she recognized as belonging to Rhaegar’s rooms. The knight opened the door for both prince and princess, and then closed it swiftly as the prince dismissed him. Elia moved towards the centre of the room, a question forming on her lips. “Rhaegar, love, what-“

 

And then he kissed her.

 

Really kissed her.

 

It was none of the cautious kisses of the past few months; it was a hard, passionate kiss. Rhaegar pulled her to his chest, held her so close she could barely breathe. Her hands pressed uselessly against his chest and his hands went from gripping her tightly to tearing at her gown. He pulled away from the kiss and put both his hands to the task of ripping apart the lacings of her bodice, jerking the dress off her shoulders even as she tried to regain her breath.

 

He moved in for another kiss and she met him eagerly, hands tangling in his long hair. His tongue pushed past her lips, devoured her whole, and she shivered in some combination of anticipation and joy. From her lips he descended to her neck, biting and sucking at the flesh while she moaned and gasped and made other such noises before she could stop herself. He moved her backwards until she stumbled into one of the tables. He pressed her back down onto the surface, his hands disappearing under her skirts while she pulled him back for another kiss. She felt his frantic fingers tearing away at her smallclothes, leaving her bare for his touch. A single finger slid its way along her core and she shuddered almost violently against the tabletop.

 

She was undeniably wet, arousal already pooling between her thighs. “Elia,” he growled into her throat before pushing his finger into her. She moaned, laying herself flat against the table and hitching her legs up and around his hips. But he was impatient, feverish as he pushed another finger to join the first and pumped both in and out of her at a rapid pace. Soon he stepped back and began to unlace his trousers. She dared a look at him then, her heart pounding at the desire so evident on his face.

 

He pulled her up until she was sitting, kissed her once more before tugging her off the table. She made a sound of protest, but replaced it with another moan as he spun her around, placing the edge of the table against her stomach. He gathered up the skirts of her gown even while pushing her legs further apart. A hand on the back of her neck pushed her forward until she was bent over the table, and with that Rhaegar thrust himself into her.

 

Elia gasped as he set up a fast, hard pace. It was unlike Rhaegar to be so rough with her, especially since Rhaenys’s birth. But she couldn’t deny the excitement it caused her, the pleasure it evoked, and she pushed back against him, meeting each thrust with an arch of her hips. Rhaegar panted from behind her, hands gripping her hips and yanking her back to meet him for every push. Her name fell from his lips in a reverent sort of mix of _Elia_ s and groans.

 

He jerked her upright suddenly, his teeth nipping at her shoulder blades and his hands worming their way through silk and damask to her breasts. She almost cried out when his fingers found her right breast, plucking and twisting at the nub before moving onto the other breast. His hips continued to thrust, to jerk wildly as their bodies slapped together. She turned her head as far as she could and he kissed her again, hands leaving her breasts to inch down the front of her gown. He punched the fabric of her skirts in his fists, sliding a hand down to touch her. His fingers flicked over her, causing her to thrash and make unseemly sounds.

 

Her release came quickly and caught her unaware. She managed little more than a gasp before her body began to slump. Her cheek pressed against the table once more as Rhaegar slammed into her once, twice, and the third and final time. She felt him stumble, felt his weight press down upon her back while he struggled to regain his breath.

 

After a few moments, he rose, pulling her along with him. Gentler this time, he turned her around and brushed a clump of sweaty curls off of her forehead. She was still a bit breathless, managing little more than a raspy giggle for her husband. “Now I see why you had such need of me, my lord.”

 

He smiled, and then looked contrite. “That was unseemly, wasn’t it? Pulling you from the room, in front of Mother and all those ladies. I just-I needed-“

 

“My sweet dragon prince,” Elia closed her eyes and leaned into her husband, her head resting just so on his chest. “As my lawful husband, it is your right to command my company whenever a ‘need’ may fall upon you. In fact, if you could manage to acquire such a ‘need’ during the day, please do not hesitate to interrupt my sewing to come and fetch me.”

 

But she did not think that he heard her. “I should not have been so reckless,” he muttered, his hand resting on the nape of her neck but his eyes somewhere farther away.

 

“Rhaegar, love?” she took his hand into her own and squeezed it tight. “What troubles you, my husband?”

 

“The Grand Maester, he warns me constantly of your health, and I just-“ Rhaegar stopped short, sighed heavily. “I am the worst kind of fool.”

 

“Or perhaps the best,” she smiled kindly, tone soft and gentle. “Everyone worries too much for my health, and it has kept us further apart than I have liked. You cannot know how I have missed you, my love; how I have missed being treated as a woman, not a glass statue. And no damage was done, except perhaps to the gown.”

 

He eyed the ripped fabric at her shoulders, grinned in pride almost in spite of himself. “I will get you another.”

 

“You had better,” she teased lightly. “Imagine the scandal if you sent me back to my rooms in this state.”

 

He took hold of the collar of her gown, gripping it tightly, and tearing it viciously once more. “And what makes you think, sweet wife, that you are being sent anywhere tonight?”

 

Days later, when he had won the tourney and she sat in the stands awaiting her crown of roses, Elia remembered that night with her husband. Oberyn was seated on her right, Ashara on her left, and Prince Lewyn stood nearby, whispering lewd jokes to his niece and nephew. She laughed, heartily on that day, clapped and cheered with her whole heart for her husband. And she smiled, gently as the way Rhaegar preferred, as he strode towards the stands with a handful of winter roses.

 

She thought it would be as the tournament at Storm’s End, that first day in the story of their love.

 

When he walked past her, without so much as a glance in her direction, her smile did not drop, but her hand clamped down on Oberyn’s wrist and squeezed it so tight that the bones of her fingers hurt.

 

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered to her brother, eyes on the wreath in the lap of the northern wolf-girl.

 

“I will kill him,” Oberyn swore, trying to shake off her hand.

 

Their uncle slammed a hand onto Oberyn’s shoulder, forced him back into his seat. “Listen to your sister.”

 

The wolf-girl turned, wide grey eyes lighting upon Elia. Elia felt her smile fade away with a single arch of her eyebrow. She held the wolf-girl’s gaze, longer than the girl could manage. Lyanna Stark dropped her eyes, her hands hovering uncertainly over the flowers on her lap.

 

Elia rose from her seat and quietly left.

 

~0~

 

“Have you ever kissed a girl, Ser Lion?”

 

Ser Jaime looked startled, obviously surprised by such a provocative question from her. Elia knew the fault lay with her; she’d played so long at being Rhaegar’s sweet princess that even she had forgotten what a bold tongue tasted like. Nevertheless, she smiled encouragingly at the young knight before her, gesturing with her head to remind him that save for Ashara, Viserys, Rhaenys, and two maids settled in the far corner, they were alone. Ser Jonothor waited outside the chamber doors.

 

The young lion recovered quickly, and smiled a flash of teeth that seemed almost ill-suited to the beauty of his face. “The princess isn’t offering to fill the deficit, should it exist, is she? I am fairly certain that would violate some of my many vows.”

 

Elia laughed, and cared not for the wary look Ashara gave her. She enjoyed the lion knight; he was at times more daring than her dear uncle. And while it was true that he was one of Tywin Lannister’s own, it bothered her little. Save for her daughter and young good-brother, Elia had little desire to fraternize with dragons. Ser Jaime was a pleasant bit of fresh air.

 

“Fear not, Ser Lion, Rhaenys is free to bestow kisses on knights, free of repercussions.” And Elia’s sweet girl-child would happily bestow many on the lion knight, as he was already her favourite amongst the Kingsguard. Aside from Prince Lewyn, Ser Jaime was the only one content to smile and laugh with the princess; Rhaenys would often ask for him by name. Elia might have preferred the company of her uncle, but Aerys seemed determined to keep uncle from niece, directly following the tourney at Harrenhal.

 

“And don’t think your coy little remarks will spare you from having to answer your princess’s question,” Elia mock-frowned at Ser Jaime. “The youngest knight to ever join the Kingsguard; your princess is worried that perhaps you might have been denied the sweet knowledge of a kiss from a girl that loves you before that cloak settled upon your shoulders.”

 

“No princess, I have not been denied that,” Ser Jaime smiled again, with that same flash of teeth as before. But he was still young, and he could not stop the red flush creeping up along his neck.

 

“Thank the Seven, you can still blush,” Elia settled back against her chair, sewing dropped neglectfully in her lap. “So, you’ve had a kiss from a girl that loves you; that is a small relief at least. What of other kisses?”

 

He frowned. “Other?”

 

“Yes, of course, there are many other types of kisses, Ser Lion,” Elia smiled, the twist of her lips far more beguiling than before. “There are kisses from girls who don’t know yet if they love you, and the kiss is a test. There are kisses from girl who know they don’t love you, and perhaps they wish to tease you. And then there are kisses from girl who don’t love you, but kiss you simply because they want to-simply because you are so handsome, and they want you.”

 

“Princess,” Ashara stepped forward, past the now stumped Ser Jaime, and gestured with her eyes to the curious maids currently fluttering about the royal children.

 

“I was merely teasing,” Elia looked at her friend and then at Ser Jaime, a softer smile stitched on her face. “Surely good Ser Lion here can handle a scant bit of teasing from his future queen, can’t he?”

 

Ser Jaime came back with another of his toothy grins. “Handle it? I am much more honoured by it, and any attention the princess deems me worthy of.”

 

Ashara, fed up with the game of it already, scowled. “May I remind you that the king is far too mad for you both to court scandal, however innocent it may be? Have a care with your words and japes, Ser Jaime; there are ears everywhere.”

 

“Spiders and little birds, too,” Elia added, the energy leaving her body in a sudden rush. She looked at Ser Jaime, a wave of regret and bitterness surging through her belly. “You are too kind, Ser Lion, to indulge a silly princess such as I. My apologies, dear knight.”

 

“’Twas naught so grievous, my lady,” Ser Jaime bowed, and with his back to the maids, winked at her quite salaciously. His voice dropped to a low whisper. “Not so grievous at all.”

 

Elia laughed, quieter this time, and felt perhaps more grateful than she should. Rhaenys and Viserys soon surged her way, Rhaenys scrambling onto her lap with Viserys tugging at her hand while they both babbled on at length about Viserys’s new atlas and all the places they had decided they would explore. Ashara stepped forward and Ser Jaime stepped back as Elia gave herself over to their childish excitement and asked to see these places. For a few minutes, she was content with the weight of Rhaenys in her lap and the press of Viserys’s head against her shoulder.

 

She should have known it would not last.

 

There was not even a knock on the door before it was pushed open. Elia looked up and her previous comfort disappeared with one glimpse of Rhaegar’s earnest expression. The room descended into tense silence as the maids stopped their whispered conversations and even the children abruptly ceased outlining their future expeditions for her. Rhaegar flinched, a slight bit, at the obvious awkwardness his presence evoked and seemed for a brief second quite uncertain.

 

But then Rhaenys shook herself of the stupor and called “Papa!” with the wholehearted love and affection that only a child could give. Rhaenys removed herself from her mother’s lap and raced across the room to throw herself at her father’s legs. Rhaegar’s face brightened immediately and he bent to pick up his daughter. Elia turned away, not surprised to see Viserys still by her side, looking at her with an expression far too understanding for a six year old boy. She smiled, kissed his silver hair softly, and handed him his book.

 

“Sweetling, I need a moment with your mother,” Elia looked back and clenched her hands into tight fists at the disappointment in Rhaenys’s eyes at the quick dismissal. “Go with your uncle to your rooms, and I will be there shortly to look at this new book with you both.”

 

The maids began to move before he set Rhaenys down, the girl mildly placated by her father’s promise. Viserys was slower to action, and he made sure to give his elder brother a sullen look as he went to join Rhaenys. Elia glanced at her open doorway, unsurprised to see Ser Arthur and Ser Jon amongst the men littering the corridor. Ser Jaime nodded at the look he received from his prince, bowed to Elia and Ashara once, before leaving the room.

 

Ashara’s hand came to rest lightly on Elia’s shoulder, a silent question. Elia nodded and soon Ashara followed the others from the room. Elia bent and picked up the sewing from where Rhaenys had pushed it to the floor and resumed her stitches as the door was pulled close. She did not look at him, she did not want to see that sickly pleading look on his face. She merely concentrated on pulling needle and thread through cloth, though her blood boiled too hot to allow her to focus on just what she was supposed to be sewing.

 

“Elia, please.”

 

She pursed her lips and still did not speak. He came closer and she responded by abruptly rising from her seat and walking to the other side of the room.

 

“Elia, stop this childishness.”

 

She stilled, hands fisting unconsciously. She gasped as the needle slid into the flesh of her palm. She dropped the cloth in sock, her thumb pressed against the rush of scarlet from the wound.

 

“Elia! You must be-“ he tried to take hold of her hand, but she jerked out of his reach. She caught his gaze, unshed tears burning hotly in her eyes.

 

“I am fine, my lord,” she all but spat at him before taking a deep breath and forcing a certain chill to her next words. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself with concern for me.”

 

He latched onto the wrist of her injured hand, tugging her forward with an uncharacteristic show of force. “You are my wife,” he reminded her, eve as his gripped softened. He looked down and cupped her hand with both of his. “I have not forgotten that.”

 

She laughed, loud and bitter and angry. He flinched at the sound, but did not release her hand. He picked up the discarded sewing and tore off a long piece. He wrapped it tight around her hand, though the injury obviously didn’t merit it; the bleeding had all but stopped by now. She waited for him to finish, body taught with tension and simmering rage.

 

He finished his wrapping, but held onto her hand. She gave it an impatient tug. “Leave me be, my lord. I am not fit company for you at this moment.”

 

You have not been for a month,” but he let her go. “Elia, it was not my intention to hurt you.”

 

“Well, what were your intentions, then?” and her voice went higher than she wanted, compelled her to close her eyes and search for some semblance of clam. “But then again, it’s not likely you were thinking too hard at the moment, is it? For what other reason could there be for you to scorn your lawful, wedded wife in front of all the lords and ladies of the realm?”

 

“I did not scorn you-“

 

“Oh, leave it!” She spun away from him, skirts tangling about her legs and causing her to stumble. “Seven damn these wretched gowns! Am I meant to drown in damask?”

 

“Elia,” and she slapped away his hands. She regained her footing and charged for her private chambers with the intention of putting a door between her and her faithless husband. But he dogged her steps right into the room, slamming the door shut behind him in a rare display of anger. “I am trying to explain-will you not listen to me?”

 

She turned on him, anger flooding in and overtaking her sense. “I will not listen-I have no desire to listen!” She swept away, pulling off her bracelets and rings and throwing them to the floor. “I have no desire for these stupid baubles, for this cage of cloth and pearls you call a gown! I have no desire for simpering, useless women with more braids than brains; for a court of men who call each other gallant so often as to hide the fact they are one and all spineless! I have no use for this whole damnable keep, nothing more than an iron cage set on locking me away for the rest of my life! I tell you now that I would go to Dorne-I would go _home_ -if not for your mad father. The Mother knows he would happily light me on fire for any imagined betrayal and there would not be one man in this city who would try to stop him!”

 

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Elia, watch your words-have you gone mad?”

 

She shoved off his hands. “I have remembered, finally remembered, who I am! And I do not know who is the bigger fool-I, for playing a gently, dull-witted princess for you, or you for thinking that is who I truly am.”

 

“You are not dull-witted, I have never thought-“

 

“You must have!” she cut in as she tried against to put more space between them. “Why else would you have come here, thinking even for a scant minute that you could explain this to me?”

 

“Elia, I do love you.”

 

“You are not here because you love me,” she replied evenly, coming to stand before the window. Her eyes looked out upon the keep and the city beyond. “You’re here because you’ve had a word with the Grand Maester.”

 

She caught his gaze with her own, fierce and bold and proud. “And yes, my lord, I am pregnant. You’re to be a father, again. Now, go.”

 

She turned her back on him before he could speak, placed her hand on the window sill and recited that old litany in her mind. _Nymeria, Nymeria, Nymeria._

 

She heard the door creak open, heard it swing to a close. Once he was gone, she crumpled, forehead pressed against the glass, and finally, Elia of Dorne wept.

 

~0~

 

Elia was sitting in her rooms, hand upon her swollen belly, bone-tired and half-asleep, when she heard the first of the screams.

 

Ashara and Ser Jaime, her constant companions these days, turned their heads at the same time she looked up. Rhaenys alone seemed undisturbed, continuing to play with her new kitten, not noticing that Ashara had stopped playing along with her.

 

The noise came from the courtyard, just inside the entrance to the Keep. Elia waited for the sounds to lessen, to fade away as they usually do upon someone’s arrival to the Red Keep. But this noise persisted, actually rose in volume, until Elia thought she could distinctly hear the bellow of one lone man.

 

A man that was shouting for her husband.

 

Elia struggled to rise to her feet, waving off Ashara as she came forward to help. Elia slowly made her way to the window, resting gratefully against the ledge as she sought out the source of the disturbance.

 

She recognized Brandon Stark, seated atop a horse, at the front of a column of men. And the wolf was shouting her husband’s name.

 

“Rhaegar! Come out and die!”

 

Elia felt her stomach lurch, pressed a hand against her side as if to hold the babe inside. “Rhaegar, you blind fool-what have you done?”

 

“He must stop this,” Ashara muttered, eyes wide and hands clenched tightly by her sides. “This is folly-someone must stop him.”

 

Elia straightened and looked to Ser Jaime. “Ser, where is my husband?”

 

His eyes flashed with uncertainty. “I do not know, princess.”

 

She looked to Ashara, and the lady shrugged helplessly. “Arthur said nothing when they left. I thought they made for Summerhall once more.”

 

Outside, Brandon Stark continued to call for Rhaegar. Elia felt her face grow hotter and hotter with each shout. “Ser Jaime, go calm the fool. Doesn’t he know the king is mad?”

 

“I cannot leave, princess,” Ser Jaime shook his head. “There is no one to relieve me.”

 

Rhaegar had taken Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell, and Ser Jonothor with him, this she knew. It wasn’t unusual for such a large party to follow the prince on his treks. Her uncle had often joined them, though Prince Lewyn had not been alone with Rhaegar since the return from Harrenhal. She wondered if that was the king’s edict, or if Rhaegar understood just a little more of the Dornish temperament than he let on.

 

Ser Barristan, Ser Gerold, and her uncle were scattered amongst the remaining dragons, and Ser Jaime had responsibility for Elia and her daughter. There were a pair of guards in the hall, but a member of the Kingsguard was needed at the side of the future queen and the heir. Elia could understand the knight’s hesitation, and truly she had no desire to become further involved. The truth of whatever drove Brandon Stark here, in this manner, would surely cause her more grief than good. She almost trembled at the possibilities.

 

Yet, she cannot leave it be. She was a Martell, underneath all this lace and silk and embroidered trappings. And a Martell princess does not hide in her rooms, waiting for a storm to pass her by.

 

“Gods be damned-that boy will get himself killed!” and though she had little sympathy for northern whelps these days, Elia saw no other recourse. “Ashara, take Rhaenys to her room. Ser Lion, you may follow who you wish.”

 

She’d put him in a hard position, and after a moment’s hesitation, he followed behind her, ordering both guards in the hall to not leave the princess’s side for even a moment. Elia tried her best to stride down the halls with grace and poise she did not feel, encumbered as she was by habitual weakness and a bulging belly.

 

Ser Jaime held her back as a flood of guards trampled down the hall. She knew where they were headed, and tried her best to push past her guard to get there first. It was hopeless, she understood that, but she felt as though she had to try.

 

“Princess! Please!” Ser Jaime pulled her behind him as they reached the corridor leading to the courtyard. The noise was almost deafening at this point, and only increased when the guards began to move back into the castle. The shouts and curses were barely discernible over the stomping of feet and the gruff reprimands of the guards. Elia peered over Ser Jaime’s shoulder, saw that the belligerent youths had been taken from their horses and were now being dragged away with chains on their wrists.

 

“What is this madness?” she demanded, pushing her way to stand beside Ser Jaime instead of behind him. “I demand to know what is happening!”

 

A few guards closest to her stumbled and seemed confused. Brandon Stark locked eyes with her briefly before attempting to wrest himself free of his captors. “Your husband-your bloody prince! He has taken my sister! He has taken her!”

 

“Enough!” and a mailed fist struck out and slammed against the side of the young wolf’s cheek. The boy’s companions started to howl and struggle anew at the sight of Stark’s bloodied lip. Ser Jaime grasped her tightly by the arm and pulled her back the way they came. She struggled to free herself, to demand another word with Brandon Stark, to call him a liar when deep down she knew him to be speaking the truth.

 

She just didn’t want to believe it.

 

“Is it true?” she demanded of Ser Jaime as he tried to take her back to her rooms. There seemed to be guards everywhere, running down every corridor and filling every entryway. “Is it true?”

 

“I don’t know, I swear,” Ser Jaime glanced at her, looking confused and so very young for a brief second. “But I can find out, I promise, but you must go back to your rooms, princess. It isn’t safe.”

 

“Why isn’t it safe?” she demanded. “Brandon’s come for my husband-he did not ask me to come out and die. I’m a bit unnecessary in this story, aren’t I, Ser Lion? An insignificant detail, a minor player, though it is my life that is being utterly torn to shreds.”

 

She received many a strange look from the guards in the hall. Finally, she relented to be dragged away, though she had him take her to her daughter’s room. Ashara waited there, ill-concealed worry on her face as she watched Rhaenys show her new dolls to the kitten. “What is it? What’s happened?”

 

Elia answered before Ser Jaime could even open his mouth. “Rhaegar has kidnapped the Stark girl. Brandon Stark has come to avenge the girl’s honour.”

 

“He kidnapped the girl?” Ashara bit her lip, looked to where Rhaenys sat, looking at the gathered adults curiously. Elia smiled at her daughter, though inside she felt a surge of violence begging to be released.

 

“What will happen?” Ashara edged closer, taking Elia’s hand in her own. “What will Aerys do?”

 

“He will call for the prince,” Ser Jaime seemed so convinced. “If only to find the truth. What else can he do? She is the daughter of the Warden of the North.”

 

Elia sighed and shook her head. “You are very young, Ser Lion.”

 

Later, Aerys would imprison the young wolf indefinitely, on charges of treason. The impetuous Stark hollered at the announcement, demanded justice for his sister, and understood not a whit of what was happening. Elia watched, quiet in her place below the Iron Throne, and listened to Brandon Stark outline the crimes of her husband’s folly. And as he was led away, she could feel the eyes of every lord and lady upon her.

 

“You better hope that child is a boy, woman,” Aerys advised her as she was taking her leave. “Otherwise, it would appear my son has no more use for you.”

 

She was still a princess of Dorne, no matter how scorned and belittled the dragons would try to make her. She left the throne room with her eyes clear, head held high, and grace in her steps. They still had to bow at her passing, still had to bend their heads in acknowledgement, though their eyes burned with a mixture of glee, pity, and reproach.

 

Her uncle was stationed at the foot of the Iron Throne, deprived of her company once more by the king. He did not look at her as she left, but she felt his anger as though it was her-because it was her own. It simmered in her darkest of hearts, and the need for justice, for restitution, clouded her mind.

 

“What happens now?” Ashara asked, in the blessed privacy of Elia’s chambers.

 

“Now, we wait,” Elia sat herself by the window and looked out to the torch-lit courtyard below. “Either Lord Rickard will come to claim his son, or Rhaegar will come home to settle the chaos of his actions.”

 

Ashara went still, back tight with tension and guilt colouring the blush in her cheeks.

 

“Do not worry, dear. I know he will not come. He hasn’t half the honour we once thought he had.”

 

Lord Rickard arrived in King’s Landing within the month. He and his son were dead within the week. Aerys had just sent letters to the Vale, demanding the heads of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, when Elia collapsed in the middle of the throne room, lying in a pool of blood as the birthing started too soon once again.

 

~0~


	6. Part Six

~282 A.L.~

 

She dreamt long after this birth, and dreamt of fire and screams and of a father and son who should not have died, of a mad man who should not be king, and of a prince who she should not have married.

 

Her struggle back to consciousness was long, and hard. Her health failed her, once more, and only her stubbornness accounted for her return to life. The maester himself had given her up for dead two or three times at least. She had Ashara send the fool away before she throttled him.

 

But things worsened as she had slept, in ways she could not have anticipated.

 

“You should not trouble yourself with this,” Ashara admonished as Elia asked after the happenings in the Vale. “You need to save your strength.”

 

“I’ve birthed the heir to the throne, and now the kingdom is in revolt,” Elia shook her head. “Nay, I haven’t the luxury for ignorance. Who would guess, in an entire kingdom of groveling, weak-willed fools that the men of honour had hidden themselves away in the Eyrie of all places?”

 

Ashara was near tears. “You should not say such things, not out loud.”

 

But Elia had had enough. “If he would burn me, then let him do it quick. I am tired of this whole mummer’s farce anyways.”

 

Her son was a dragon, through and through. He had some of her, around the nose and shape of his lips, but that was all. Rhaenys was made completely in her mother’s image, and this boy child was Rhaegar remade. Even Aerys was pleased, however much he could be, and actually sent a letter congratulating her on a job well done.

 

Elia had Ashara burn it, and she felt only half the satisfaction that she should have.

 

Her recovery was stinted this time, for all her will could not overcome the damage the birth had caused. Ashara had to feed her for well on two weeks before Elia could manage the task on her own. Her attempts to walk were brief and often discouraging, as she could only make herself take a few steps before she was exhausted. She slept long and often, needed Ashara’s help more than she wanted to need it, and was effectively bed-ridden for months after the birth.

 

She awoke one day, about three weeks after the birth, to find herself not alone as usual. It was midday; she could tell by the streams of sunlight coming through the window. She wasn’t surprised to find the day already half over; she slept more now than she ever remembered before. Ashara usually made certain that there was no one to disturb her, and would come herself when the princess called.

 

But today, somebody stood by her window, waiting for her. She blinked weary eyes at the dark figure, waiting for the haze of sleep to clear. It was the silver hair that first came into focus, and then the red and black of his tunic. Her heart stuttered, stopped its usual low beating and transformed into erratic halts and lurches. He turned to face her, and she saw now that he held their son in his arms. The babe was fidgeting, face red and tiny fists jerking in the air.

 

“Our son is hungry,” Rhaegar told her. He lifted his head at last, looked at her with the strangest expression, and then walked to her bed. She had a wealth of things to say, of accusations to scream and recriminations to bestow. The anger had been stewing every day of his absence, frightening her with the darkness and bitterness that her body could hold. She wanted to demand answers, to ask him what he had been thinking; she wanted to rage and be hysterical and rip him apart piece by piece.

 

But she was Princess Elia of Dorne, and her mother had long ago taught her that hysterics accomplished nothing. She took the babe from his arms, cradling the child in her left arm while undoing the laces on her shift with the other. She put her son to the breast, forced herself to stay upright and look alert.

 

Rhaegar took a seat on the bed, his knee touching her legs. Elia stifled the urge to pull her legs away; he had debased her enough on his own, she wouldn’t aid him further by acting a child. “His name is Aegon,” Rhaegar informed her, voice quiet but firm, eyes only for the child at her breast.

 

She wanted to cringe at the name. How like her husband to be so dramatic. “Will you write him a song?” she asked, a derisive tilt to her words.

 

Rhaegar stared into her eyes, and she did not know what to make of the strange gleam they held. “He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”

 

He laid a hand on Aegon’s head, fingers brushing against the bare skin of her breast in the process. “There must be one more; the dragon has three heads.”

 

“Well, it is good fortune then that you shall soon have a young, new wife. Surely she will be stronger and more fertile than your last.”

 

He pulled back his hand, violet eyes flickering with shame. “Elia, don’t say such things.”

 

“What would you like me to say?” she asked, her tone unconcerned and light. “Haven’t you been thinking of the perfect excuse for why you took the Stark girl? What better reason that your blasted three-headed dragon and your weak wife, no longer able to give you another child? I’m sure the maester was quick to inform you of my condition, and you were quick to think of justifications based upon my failings. It is what your father does.”

 

He rose from the bed, began to pace. She turned her face away from him, content to look down upon her son and trace a finger lightly over his pink cheeks. She wondered how she could hold such disdain and such gratitude for Rhaegar in her heart. He was not the man he proclaimed himself to be, and her illusions were shattered more and more daily. But he had his hand in giving her this child, and beautiful Rhaenys before. She wondered if they would be enough to grant him some forgiveness on her part.

 

“I have wronged you,” he confessed suddenly, the words leaving him in a rush. “I have tried to convince myself that I could make you understand, but I know I put you through an ordeal most women would not abide. I have thought of what reasons I could give you, what excuses that would give you some comfort, some explanation that would not wound you entirely. I have been dreaming, haven’t I?”

 

She did not answer; such questions do not deserve answers.

 

“I shall not try then, for to put you through the insult of listening to a half-hearted justification is something I finally realized I could not put you through. But believe, Elia, I do love you-I have almost since the moment I saw you.”

 

“Your love is to blame for this mess,” Elia glanced at her husband, anger hardening her words and burning her throat. “This whole family dabbles in madness, in one form or another. Your father has lost his mind. He cooks the northern lords in their armour and expects everyone to bend the knee-never realizing how unwilling people have become to bare their necks for a mad king. His madness is power, the utter belief that he is king and all would try to take them from him. But you, my husband, your madness is that very love you offer to me now as a condolence for breaking my heart and ripping the realm to pieces.”

 

“Elia-“

 

“You lose reason, you lose thought-you become so impulsive and rash and so unlike that sweet prince I married. In the short life of our marriage, you have loved me with a passion that I could barely sate. And when I became too weak to bear it, your love turned to a wolf-girl that was not yours to love. Say what you will of fate and destiny and true love-that is not the world we live in. You are the heir to the throne, and you must uphold and respect the laws and customs of our land if you ever wish others to do the same. You have spat upon everything by taking the girl, ripping her away from her family and her betrothed. Her honour and her virtue are gone; even if you have not touched her, no one will ever believe she is a maid. She will be tainted by this for years to come, and she will either be reviled for enticing away a married prince and causing this war, or she will be mourned as an innocent child, raped by a lustful dragon prince who snatched her from her home. That is your destiny now, my husband.”

 

Rhaegar’s hands shook, clenched into fists at his side. She saw, for the first time, some stirrings of rage in her husband’s eyes. It pleased her where perhaps before it would have shamed her. But she was not that woman anymore.

 

“Have you told her, your little lady love, what Aerys did to her father and brother? How did you explain your absence, your complete unwillingness to come and face them, to perhaps spare them the fate Aerys had planned for them? Does she hate you now? Has she ever not hated you, from that moment you took her?”

 

“Oh Elia, I fear the gods may not forgive me this,” he looked to her, crestfallen and despaired. “I have made a cruel woman out of you.”

 

“No, love, you have just reminded me of the shrewd woman I should have been all along,” she turned back to the babe at her breast, paused to turn him around and switch him to the other before speaking again. “When this war is over, I will move to Dragonstone with Rhaenys and Aegon. You will tell Aerys that this is your wish. You will come to visit, or request the children be brought to court ever so often. This will be done, but I will not leave Dragonstone for King’s Landing until our son is wed. When both are married and happy, I will return home to my brothers, and after that, I would ask that you, most gracious prince, never endeavour to meet with me again. You keep your little wolf-girl here, make her your queen, and do us both a great service to forget that you were ever wed to Princess Elia of Dorne.”

 

He seemed utterly lost in that moment, disbelief and grief dueling for dominance. “You would end it?”

 

She looked back to her son, kissed his soft tufts of silver hair. “You ended it, my prince, when you misplaced the crown of winter roses.”

 

~0~

 

It was Ser Arthur who came to collect her.

 

She sat by her window, dressed delicately in a gown of red and black, the perfect Targaryen wife. Ashara fretted to and fro, barking instructions at the nurse carrying Aegon and the maid trying to coax Rhaenys’s curls into braids. A knock on the door turned out to be Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur, both fully armoured. Both bent the knee in front of her, and she gestured almost lazily for them to rise. 

 

“It is time, princess,” Ser Oswell informed her, his tone clipped and formal. She wanted to laugh at him, taking offence for a prince who had wronged her more than she him. Instead, she smiled at him, a parody of sweetness and grace.

 

“Of course, good ser,” Elia nodded at Ashara. “Lady Ashara, please take the prince. We must be off; my husband leaves for war today.”

 

Rhaenys, disgruntled by the offensive braids plaited into her hair and uncomfortable in her ornate gown, took hold of Ashara’s skirts in an obvious rebuff of her maid and marched out the door with her brother. Elia smirked at the sight of the princess, head held high and expression almost obscenely fierce for such a small child.

 

“My mother would have delighted in meeting her,” Elia laughed and turned to Ser Arthur, the knight obviously surprised to hear her addressing him in anything other than derision. She took a moment to look at him, eyes traveling over a handsome face that she knew far better than most would suspect. She offered him her hand and he helped her to her feet.

 

She surprised him further by settling her hand in the crook of his elbow, gliding gracefully past the bowing maid and nurse and out into the corridor. “You have changed, become so much larger and stronger than that boy I used to know,” she whispered to him, low so the guards in the halls could not make out her words.

 

He started, arm tensed suddenly and then relaxed. “I am older now, my princess, and no longer a boy.”

 

“No, that is true, and I am no longer a girl,” her fingers tightened on his arm, squeezing the muscles there and unsurprised at their iron. “Do you remember when I was a girl?”

 

Ser Arthur coughed, uneasy. “Of course, my princess.”

 

“Do you remember when you kissed me in the rain, hiding from our brothers in your family’s orchards?”

 

He stumbled, almost dropped her arm. “Princess, please,” he looked around, but they had walked past the guards minutes past. There was no one left to overhear them, but she kept her voice to a whisper nonetheless.

 

“I thought, then and almost every day for a year, that you would marry me. Your father would come to ask the Lady, and she would grant it if only because I would demand it. I would have worn orange and red, and Ashara would have carried the train of my dress. I would move to Starfall and we would all live happily, many children and many nieces and nephews. A life of contentment, riding whenever we wished, trips to Sunspear almost every week. Oberyn would drag you away for many a reckless misadventure, I would be waiting to scold you both upon your return. I dreamt of it so often, it almost felt as though it was fated to be.”

 

To that, he said nothing. She glanced up at him and found him unable to meet her eyes. She was not surprised by that. This was a topic she had never discussed with anyone before. But there was something in the morning air that day, it seemed to make her nostalgic, perhaps a bit vulnerable, and suddenly her life was full of one regret too many.

 

“Why did you come here? For the cloak and glory? Why did you not stay?”

 

Ser Arthur let out a breath, a sound full of resignation. “I am the second son of a lower house-how could I presume to marry the princess of Dorne?”

 

“That did not matter to me.”

 

“It mattered to me!” he stopped, tried to reign in his frustration. “What would our children have inherited? A speck of Dayne lands? What would they have had a right to? I was not suited to marry a princess, not when there were far better matches for you. And I, what would I have been other than a princess’s husband? Here I am the Sword in the Morning, and people speak of my valour, not of my gall. I had my glory, and you had your better match.”

 

Elia laughed, short and brittle. “And look what has happened. I had the best match a daughter could have, and I’d trade it all for a second son of a lesser house. At least he would not have put me through this disgrace; he would have been discreet had he ever decided to betray me.”

 

The muscles in his arm tensed once more. “He never would have betrayed you, princess.”

 

“Never say never, dear knight,” she smiled at him, tears pooling in her eyes before she blinked them back. “He betrayed me once, by running away. I think that I was never fated to be loved by any man; there is always something more precious to them than I. For the first, it was glory; the second, it was a little wolf-girl. I cannot say now which betrayal hurt the most.”

 

Later, she searched for him amongst the knights littering the courtyard of the keep. He looked so gallant upon his horse, and she wished her heart could feel regret instead of bitterness. But perhaps that was too much to ask on a day such as this. She shifted her attention then to her uncle, standing fierce and proud with the banner of House Martell in hand. He caught her gaze and she caught his, and she immediately straightened her spine. She pushed back the self-pity and nodded once briefly at her mother’s brother.

 

She stood with her children, Ashara surrendering Aegon to her arms and Rhaenys trading her grip on Ashara’s skirts for a grip on Elia’s instead. With Aerys watching closely, Elia dipped her ankles in front of her husband, smiled one last gentle smile for him, and kissed him sweetly before sending him to fight for another.

 

“Farewell, my love,” he whispered into her ear, his face hopeful.

 

“Hurry home, my prince,” and she gave him nothing but an empty smile and no promises for the future.

 

The crowds cheered for him as he departed, the people mindful of their king’s gaze. Rhaegar rode out of the Red Keep with a contingent of soldiers and most of the Kingsguard following in his wake. Only Ser Jaime remained, expression carefully blank as Aerys sneered openly at him. Elia waited beside her good-mother, the queen’s belly swelling in that tell-tale way, and wordlessly turned to leave when she was dismissed. Rhaenys abandoned her when Viserys came tugging upon her hand and Elia deposited Aegon into Ashara’s care.

 

“Did you do as I asked?” she asked Ashara as she led the way back to her rooms. Ashara nodded once and Elia smiled gratefully at her friend. The guards outside her door bowed to her and opened the door for her. She waved them off, shutting the door herself after Ashara followed her through. Elia motioned for Ashara to take the prince to his cradle, her attention entirely on the man waiting for her in her sitting room.

 

“Princess,” the man wheezed and dipped down into a ridiculously low bow. Elia rolled her eyes at Ashara and swept towards her chair.

 

“Lord Varys, I need you to do something for me.”

 

~0~


	7. Finale

~283 A.L.~

 

It was raining the day she heard the news.

 

Elia hurried down the halls towards the throne room, her stomach twisting into knots at the hushed whispers and scurrying servants everywhere. They passed a pair of sniffling maids and she stretched her hand out behind her blindly. Ashara grabbed a hold of her hand and squeezed it once in reassurance.

 

Elia nearly stumbled upon entering the throne room, the shouts of the king echoing off the walls. The queen and young Viserys were already there, the prince wide-eyed as he watched his father rage and throw things around the room. The queen was shaking, tears trickling down her face and one hand cradling a reddening cheek.

 

“Gods be good,” Elia whispered, but she knew they would not be in this case.

 

Aerys turned and spotted her, violet eyes widening. “You! You little Dornish whore!” Elia scrambled backwards as Aerys flew at her, Ashara trembling behind her. She watched him approach her, uncomprehending what was to happen until she actually felt the palm of his hand upon her cheek. The blow sent her head jerking to the side, and the force of it knocked her to the floor.

 

Ashara screamed and tried to pull her to her feet. Elia heard other shouts, distinctly heard Viserys’s belligerent shout amongst the cacophony, and shrieked herself when she heard the sound of flesh striking flesh once more. The queen was cradling the stunned prince in her arms, cowering before her enraged husband, when Elia all but fell at her side. She pressed her hands to Viserys’s face, crying at the broken look she found there.

 

Aerys struck out again, hands grasping at her hair. Elia could not help the scream that erupted from her throat as Aerys jerked her back onto her feet. Ashara moved to help and the king lashed out at her as well. The queen begged for peace from her place crumpled upon the floor and Elia felt her breath stop at the maniacal gleam in the king’s eyes.

 

“My son is dead!” the king roared, pulling harder on her hair to bring her face that much closer to his. “Your craven uncle betrayed him and that bastard Baratheon killed him! My son is dead! And you, deceitful little Dornish bitch! You told them to let him die, didn’t you?”

 

He released her hair only to strike her again. Elia fell back to the floor and stayed there, a hand pressed to her injured cheek and wide eyes looking up at the king. She flinched when he moved, instantly grateful as he turned back to mount the Iron Throne instead of continuing his attack. Aerys collapsed in his seat, not noticing as his palm was sliced open on the edge of a sword and blood began to drip onto the floor.

 

Ashara crept forward cautiously, her arms going around Elia and trying to lift her up. They went slowly, as did Rhaella, all three watching the king for any signs of sudden movement. Elia stepped forward and helped the queen lift Viserys from the floor, not hesitating to wrap her arms around the boy when he buried his face in her skirts. Elia motioned for Ashara to help the queen, who looked pale and liable to collapse again, one hand pressed against the swell of her stomach.

 

“Rhaella!” Aerys barked, and all three women jumped. “Pack your things. You will take our son to Dragonstone right away.”

 

The queen looked to Elia, and the king let out an ugly laugh. “The bitch and her litter stay here. I’ll teach Dorne what it means to abandon their king. What are their words? Unbent, unbowed, unbroken? We shall see.”

 

“But the children . . .” Aerys turned his glare upon her and the queen instantly lost her voice. Elia swallowed her panic and nodded once to her good-mother before pulling Viserys away from her skirts. She knelt before the prince, dried his tears and tried to stop her own.

 

“Viserys, my love,” she kissed him gently on the cheek. “You need to go with your mother now. You must take care of her, and the babe when it comes. You must do this now, because your brother cannot do it any longer. Do you understand, my love?”

 

He nodded, though he cried still. Wordlessly, he took his mother’s hand and let himself be led away. Aerys glared at her hatefully as she curtsied before him, but did not move to stop her as she left the room.

 

“You must pack,” she ordered Ashara, once they were back in her rooms. Aerys had sent guards with a message that she should be confined in her apartments until such the rebels had been dealt with. The babe was with her and Rhaenys was to remain in her own quarters for the time being.

 

Ashara looked bewildered at the command. “Princess, I am not-“

 

“You are going home,” Elia interrupted, resolute and firm. “One of us should, and you are the only one able to do so.”

 

Ashara wept then. “I cannot leave you.”

 

Elia hugged her dearest friend close to her breast and kissed her once upon the brow.

 

“You must; there’s nothing left here.”

 

~0~

 

The lions were in the Red Keep.

 

She could hear the screams echoing off the walls, could hear the sounds of sword and axes clashing against one another, of doors splintering and crashing open.

 

War had come to King’s Landing at last.

 

Elia jolted awake in the middle of the night, the chaos of the keep soon spilling into her room. The maids started screaming and she had to slap one before they recovered their wits.

 

“Get the princess!”

 

And then they were moving. Elia could hear the ruckus getting louder and louder, knew that soon there would be lions barging into her rooms with bloody swords and dark intentions. Elia wrapped the squalling babe in blankets and lifted him into her arms. One of the maids stumbled back in the door and told her Rhaenys was not in her rooms.

 

“Her father’s room, quickly!”

 

The girl left and not three seconds later, Elia heard a blood-curdling scream. She stopped in the middle of her sitting room, the child clutched tightly to her breast, and listened to the sounds of footsteps just beyond her open door. Panic swelled for a scant minute, and Elia thought of her beautiful daughter and prayed the gods had seen fit to give Rhaenys an escape from this madness.

 

A shadow loomed in the doorway. Elia closed her eyes and her mind went to Rhaegar, her foolish, dead husband.

 

_A reunion or a separation-which would be a kindness and which a cruel jape? I still do not know, my prince._

 

She opened her eyes, spied the beast of a man eyeing her from the corridor. Elia of Dorne lifted her chin, met the monster’s gaze with her own.

 

“My brothers will kill you for this.”

 

He stepped into the room.

 

~The End~


End file.
